Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)

The fact that Deputy Fergus O'Dowd is the Minister of State with responsibility for NewERA is incidental in terms of this being a whole Government approach to the issue. We should not underestimate the fact that the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Bruton, is on the Cabinet sub-committee. There is a corporate view at Government level between the two parties of Government of the need to ensure we have an entity that will carry out a corporate governance function from a shareholder perspective and that will report to the relevant Ministers and be overseen by the Cabinet committee on economic infrastructure. The bottom line is that it is a whole of Government approach. Through NewERA, the Government is taking control of the infrastructure as per the semi-State companies involved.

Regarding the second part of the question on the jobs target, the key emphasis is to ensure we get it up and running. We must get the key strategic infrastructure fund in place through the NPRF and we must become more efficient in terms of how we run these companies. Infrastructure is the key at this point.

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