Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

Assets will be sold on acceptable terms and at a price that achieves fair value for the taxpayer. Key strategic assets, such as electricity and gas transmission and distribution systems will not be included in the disposal programme, but will be retained in State ownership. I believe the agreement reached with the troika represents real and significant progress.

I will turn now to the specific assets that are to be sold. In deciding on the programme that I announced last week, the Government has been careful to safeguard the position of strategic infrastructure such as the electricity and gas networks, which are considered to be vital to the functioning of the economy. The House will have noted that these assets are not part of the disposal programme and will remain under State control. What will be sold is the energy business of Bord Gáis Éireann, BGE, but not including BGE's gas transmission or distribution systems or the two gas interconnectors, which will remain in State ownership. I refer by and large to the wind energy and other soft energy options that BGE has built up over time. Nobody can argue that they must be held in State ownership from a strategic point of view.

The Minister for Communications Energy and Natural Resources will consult with the Commission for Energy Regulation and the ESB and advise the Government on the specific ESB assets that are to be sold, with the objective of materially improving the competitive dynamics of the single electricity market to the benefit of consumers, as well as realising the assets for the productive purposes I have outlined.

I ask the House to pay attention to the next point as it is a different decision. We have said on the first level of issues that we will sell them when the market conditions and regulatory issues are right, but on Coillte, consideration will be given to the sale of some of its assets. This will focus primarily on the harvesting rights of Coillte's forests, but I have already made it clear that Coillte's landholding is not for sale.

The Government now accepts that the State's remaining 25% shareholding in Aer Lingus is not a strategic asset, as it does not enable the Government to determine Aer Lingus policy on issues such as the use of the airline's landing slots at Heathrow Airport. Unfortunately, the previous Administration, in selling off 75% of the company already moved that out of State hands. Accordingly, the Government has decided that the State's remaining shareholding in Aer Lingus will be sold at an appropriate time, when market conditions are favourable and an acceptable price is agreed.

The policy that has been pursued by the Government that we set out and that has been carefully tacked over the past year in terms of reforming the manner in which State assets are managed for the benefit of the taxpayer and job creation to get the best value for the shareholders, namely, the people of this country, is the right thing to do. We have identified the optimal means of releasing value from some non-strategic State assets, in an appropriate way, which is the right thing to do given the fiscal and economic challenges facing the economy. I am confident that the asset disposal programme which I announced last week - for the information of Deputies opposite it was endorsed unanimously by Government - will have a significantly positive outcome by driving competition and driving down prices in the energy sector as well as generating desperately needed resources for investment in jobs and the recovery of the economy. On that basis, I commend the Government's amendment to the House.

See this speech in context