Shane Ross (Dublin South, Independent)

I do not support the motion, mainly because it "believes that commercial semi-State companies should not be privatised in part or in whole". Zealots on both sides of this argument are wrong. In particular in the situation in which the Government finds itself, one has to adopt a pragmatic attitude to the sale of State assets. In an ideal world, we would not be selling anything at all. However, one has to ask why this is happening and why the ESB has been chosen. Why it is happening is quite obvious - the Government is broke and needs to raise the money. The ESB has been chosen because so many other semi-States are valueless. One could not sell Aer Rianta because it is bust and in debt, or sell CIE because it receives a subsidy of about €300 million a year. One could not sell a huge number of State assets if one actually came to examine them. The Government has obviously used its slide rule to examine the ESB and has decided this is guaranteed and ready to go. The problem is that, having decided to do this, it came under pressure from other parties and decided to fudge the issue.

What Deputy Wallace said is correct - selling 25% is an absurd way of approaching this problem. The Government is presumably looking for a trade buyer, to put it on the stock market or is considering other alternatives. Any buyer considering this will undoubtedly have a commercial motive and it will feel imprisoned by the presence of the Government on the board and in control of this utility. What will happen is that the Government will sell the 25% for much less than one quarter of what the company is worth because the embedded value of the 75% gives control to somebody other than the purchaser. No commercial entity wants to get in there and be controlled by a Government which is not working to the same commercial mandate.

The only other idea I have heard on how to raise money from the sale of State assets is barmy, and I am glad I have not heard it suggested in this House. Mr. David Begg, the secretary of ICTU, suggested we set up a State holding company and that we put all the basket cases in there together and then try to sell some of them. It is an absolutely mad idea. When we come to debate this subject, we must keep our heads and keep the wild men from talking of extremes and saying they are for or against all privatisation.

The Government is in a corner. It made absolutely the only decision open to it, namely, to sell a few State assets. It then made utterly the wrong decision to sell only 25% because it will get a pittance or a fraction of what it is worth.

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