Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

Last year, the Government established NewERA to reform the manner in which the State's shareholding in semi-State companies is managed for the good of every citizen. NewERA is proactively overseeing corporative governance from a shareholder perspective of the commercial energy area semi-State companies, the ESB, EirGrid, Bord Gáis, Bord na Móna and Coillte. It is advising relevant Ministers on matters such as dividend policy, capital investment plans, approval of borrowings and so on.

The Government has also set up the strategic investment fund in the National Treasury Management Agency, NTMA, as the forerunner to the strategic investment bank. Drawing on resources from the National Pensions Reserve Fund, NPRF, in combination with matching commercial investment from private investors, the strategic investment fund will channel resources towards the productive sector in the economy. The €1 billion we can get from the sale of State assets will be one element of getting absolutely needed capital. We will also use the NPRF, the European Investment Bank and the Council of Europe Development Bank, as well as any other private sector funding we can leverage, to drive an agenda of growth and recovery. NewERA is working closely with the strategic investment fund and the NPRF to ensure commercial investment opportunities are developed.

Considerable progress has also been made over the past year in assessing the suitability of a range of State assets. Two working groups were established in 2011 - one to consider the best approach in progressing the proposed part-sale of the ESB, including energy policy, regulatory, legal, financial and economic considerations; and the other to undertake a similar analysis of several other State assets. Both of these groups completed their work in 2011 and reported to Ministers in December 2011.

NewERA was also centrally involved in this process, together with my Department, the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport and the Department of Finance. It was on the basis of the analysis undertaken by these two working groups that the Government last week agreed to the list of asset disposals announced on 22 February. It also agreed not to proceed with the minority stake in the vertically integrated ESB as had been previously decided as it was not the best way to advance. The analysis undertaken on the original proposed ESB transaction identified a range of complex regulatory, legislative and policy issues which would have to be addressed before a part-sale of the company as an integrated utility could proceed. Accordingly, it was not practical to continue to proceed with that proposal.

The Government has also achieved a significant breakthrough in our negotiations with the troika on the use of State assets. I thank our partners for the protracted engagement on this matter. Instead of the troika's original plan that a programme of asset sales of €5 billion be used exclusively to retire debt, we have now agreed that in return for committing to a target of up to €3 billion, the Government will be permitted to retain one third of the proceeds generated to invest in job creation initiatives to stimulate the economy which is so desperately needed and of which the Deputies opposite are right. Jobs are the focus, first and last, of the Government.

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