Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

There were a number of questions and assertions in Deputy Wallace's contribution. A programme for Government was negotiated by the two parties in Government, namely, Fine Gael and the Labour Party. People will be aware that both parties have different perspectives in regard to the sale of State assets. However, we entered government in unprecedented economic times. We are in an incredible hole. The unified view of this Government is that we need to grow ourselves out of this terrible mess we inherited from our predecessor government and we need to create jobs. However, we need resources to create jobs and do not domestically have those resources.

NewERA, put forward during the last general election by Fine Gael, looks at what happened in the early years of this State when capital was not available for job creation and public capital was used to create the ESB, Bord na Móna, Aer Lingus and so on. We need to have capital for the next generation. The NewERA entity has been established, as has the strategic investment fund. We need to have access to funds to resource these entities to create jobs, which is what we are doing.

The previous Government accepted the troika's view that money had to be used to retire debt simpliciter. We have said "no" to that. It has taken a number of goes at it but we have moved the troika considerably. The word I have used in the response to this parliamentary question is an agreed word with the troika, namely, "sizeable" amounts of money from the sale of State assets can be deployed. Those discussions are ongoing. I can assure the Deputy that there will be no fire sale. We will do what is in the best interests of the economy and jobs.

See this speech in context