Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

This Government has adopted a dynamic attitude to the State sector. NewERA was established to ensure the State and the taxpayers derive best value from their investment in State companies. It must be remembered these companies exist to serve the taxpayer; it is not the other way around. That includes releasing capital back into a capital-starved economy, if that is in the people's interest.

We have been at pains to point out what the public interest is and to protect it. Unlike Fianna Fáil's privatisation of Eircom, properly criticised by the Deputies opposite, there is no sale proposed of strategic networks or assets. The ESB remains a vertically integrated utility free to compete in the soon-to-arrive European market place. The gas network will remain entirely in public ownership. So too will Dublin Port. We will not sell the Coillte land. Selling the crop of trees is not a catastrophe.

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