Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

Ba mhaith liom moladh a thabhairt do Shinn Féin as ucht an rún seo a chur síos. Tacaím go mór leis an rún. B'fhéidir nach ndéanaim sin ar son na cúiseanna a bhfuil Sinn Féin á chur ar aghaidh, ach tacaím go mór leis go bunúsach.

I commend the Government for having the courage to do a total about-turn and to implement the policies the previous Government was implementing to ensure the fiscal stability of the State and to ensure services to our people would continue.

I have already expressed my opposition to the proposal that has been put before us in regard to the ESB. Our position is based on both experience and an analysis of the issues that are at stake. I do not have a principled objection to the State selling assets. I have always believed, as the Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, knows, that where Údarás na Gaeltachta owned factories and achieved value for those in order to build another factory, which would tie the factory owner to the location as he had then made a big investment and it was not easy to move, it was a gain-gain situation. Each case has to be examined on its merits. However, I believe the approach in this case is utterly flawed and wrong.

We must analyse the issue carefully. We had made a decision in government that we would not sell either the high voltage lines, which are the transmission lines, or the low voltage lines, which are the network of lines connecting to all houses, because they were a fundamental strategic national asset. To sell them to private interests would shift something that had been fundamental to the development of the State right back to at least the time when Fianna Fáil came into power in the 1930s. It is very interesting that one of the constant aims of Fianna Fáil was to promote the dispersal of energy so that industries could be developed throughout the country.

The Government owns a company in which the State interest is the only interest because 95.5% of the shares are owned by the State and the other shares are owned by the workers, who are working for the State. If there is a sale of a minority stake of anything up to 49%, the board immediately changes, and in that boardroom for the first time ever there will be people whose only interest is financial return. The long-term strategic interest of the State will be to them secondary and, as they are obliged under law, return for the shareholder will be the primary interest. What happens in that boardroom when there is a conflict between the return to the State in the national interest and the return to the shareholder in terms of a quick buck and dividend for the investor? It will create a chaotic incompatibility and will also lead to the danger of under-investment in the grid.

There is a tremendous investment programme taking place at present, and the EirGrid electricity investment project, Grid 25, is of vital importance. Let us spell out what we are talking about. The first thing we need this for is to reach our target of 40% of renewables by 2020. Unless we keep investing in the grid to bring it to where the wind is, it will not be possible to reach that target.

I am not suggesting that investment will give a direct repayment back to the ESB, which might make more short-term profit by not making that investment. However, on many strategic fronts, the State would lose because we would not reach our Kyoto targets and the more ambitious targets we have set. It would lose because we would be over-dependent on oil and what might happen in the event of any oil or gas shortage or crisis, or simply rising prices due to peak oil. It would lose because we would be exporting money from the country to buy oil when we could keep that money in the country for other purposes by having our own, indigenous energy sources. In other words, wind energy would become to Ireland what the bogs and turf energy were in previous decades in terms of our not having to export money to buy the raw materials for energy generation.

The second issue that will arise at board level is the reversal of a policy adopted immediately after the war by Fianna Fáil, namely, that of ensuring everybody living in the State would have access to electricity at a fair price. I do not know how much the Government knows about how the ESB prices lines into a domestic dwelling. The reality is that we have had a social and economic development policy which stated that electricity is the right of every citizen and focused, for example, on keeping the small schools of Ireland open. What will the shareholder whose only interest is the return on his capital want except the charging of the full economic price? They are a bit sore in Kerry this week, which was a hard week for them, but I will use the county as an example. If an electricity line to the back end of a Kerry has to be upgraded, the person concerned with economic return will say: "If there are new industries in west Kerry, let them pay for the upgrade of the line because I want a return on my shares".

It is interesting that we still face huge challenges in regard to investment. I am advised that Dublin is the only place in the country with a sufficiently robust electricity supply to host major data centres. While this may not be important to the financial investor in the ESB, it is incredibly important for balanced regional development in which we continue to invest in order that the location of such major industries must not necessarily be centralised in a single place. In other words, my point is that the minute one brings in a private shareholder, the decisions of the board, which heretofore had been determined ultimately by the national interest, will henceforth be determined by a significant part of that board, who will have an absolute obligation to their shareholders to try to maximise the return in respect of pure profit. I have been a great believer in the semi-State sector when I saw what it could do. I acknowledge semi-State companies do things which perhaps they should not be doing but in respect of things the private sector would not do, where it would not invest sufficiently or where there is a strategic national interest, one should not allow in the private sector.

The motion before Members refers to broadband and I note the Minister has a limited vision with regard to broadband. He thinks people like me who believe fibre should be available throughout this tiny island are living in a dream world. However, for as long as the Government owns the ESB, it is terribly easy technically to wrap fibre around the ESB lines. As there is an ESB line into every house in the country, by owning those lines outright the State can take a decision to use the ESB to be both the electricity and fibre carrier. Moreover, the associated technology is becoming increasingly cheap and increasingly easy to implement. As one literally uses existing lines, one is not obliged to erect poles or anything else but simply wraps the fibre along the lines. Ultimately, by selling off a part-share in the lines that extend to each house in the country, the Government potentially is both doing huge damage to investment policy in this basic infrastructure and is closing down a new avenue that has opened up to resolve the issue of broadband in Ireland.

There has been talk of the agreement with the EU-IMF and I have heard many contradictions from the Ministers opposite. As the latter are so careful to point out to Members, the European Union and the IMF really are only concerned about the bottom line. They have made this clear both to the Government and to my party as long as the targets are achieved. Moreover, these targets are absolutely necessary anyway and even in the absence of the EU-IMF deal, we would be obliged to reduce the deficit as one cannot continue borrowing money for the current account forever. Even if there was no EU-IMF agreement and even if the money was available, it would be imprudent for this country to continue with the type of deficit we have. However, within that, there is room for manoeuvre. I was fascinated to hear the Minister, Deputy Howlin, state a few minutes ago that there is no problem with the EU-IMF because while they wanted the proceeds to be put into debt retirement, the Government intends to put it into new investment. Consequently, the idea that the spectre of the EU-IMF is driving the Government to this crazy proposal is absolutely belied by the Government's own words. If it intends to put this money into new infrastructure, and I concur new infrastructure should be built, it should not do so by this particular route. The really crucial infrastructure required here is physical infrastructure such as roads, broadband, electricity and gas. The aim should be to hold on to the basic networks for all these things. Although the electricity network could be the network for both broadband and electricity, the Government intends to sell a stake in order to be able to do what it could do much more easily by holding onto that stake. Therefore, it is a complete contradiction in terms.

I am aware the Fine Gael Party contains those who have never been believers in State companies. They could never recognise the fantastic achievements of Bord na Móna and never realised the State companies have created profitable industries where no one in the private sector ever would. Such people have an illogical hang-up about the disposal of State assets, which poses a huge challenge for the Labour Party. On the other hand, I am disappointed by the reaction of some unions. The threat of strike only feeds the paranoia of those right-wing people who believe the solution to all problems is to privatise everything and in the god of competition. I ask the unions to fight this bizarre decision by the Government and have no difficulty with them so doing in the national interest, although they should do so in a mature and reasonable manner.

I believe that holding the country to ransom in the manner proposed would only add steel and some validity to the argument that somehow there is a problem with State monopolies. I have never believed that those who work in State monopolies should be allowed to use muscle for their own personal gain. I believed those assets truly exist for the good of the nation and that people in such entities were entitled to good terms of employment. However, they were not entitled to either bad work practices or terms of employment that were far in excess of anything in comparative industries. I believe they should be efficient and should be models of good practice. I hope the vast majority of workers in the State companies, who share my view of what a State company should be, will not follow a leadership who will be completely destructive of the national interest in this case by making the case for the privateers who wish to begin disposing of these assets.

If the Government sells a 30% or 40% stake, it will set up a board on which two wings exist from the outset. There will be a wing that considers the national interest in investment decisions and another that considers the shareholder interest and the profit interest while making decisions.

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