Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

It was not. One wonders about the point of going through all of what we have been through over the past three and a half years when people are stating in the House that we should not sell any State assets and instead invest in wind energy, for example. Where are we to get the funds to invest in wind energy? There has been a great deal of wind blowing around the Chamber last night and tonight, and there is very little by way of prescription.

These are parlous times for our country and the European Union. We could have an interesting debate on allocating blame for the crisis into which we have been plunged, but such a debate, while it may be useful in terms of identifying lessons to be learned, is of little value in the here and now or in pointing the way to economic recovery. The difference between the Government and Opposition in this debate is that the former is focused on solutions designed to help our economic recovery while Opposition speakers are focused on mischief-making, mock indignation and distortion of the facts in the hope it will strike a chord with a section of the electorate.

The Sinn Féin motion's principal proposer, Deputy Martin Ferris, allows himself to be distracted from the purpose at hand in his enthusiasm to have a go at the Labour Party. It seems the Sinn Féin hierarchy is satisfied there is no point kicking Fianna Fáil as there is scarcely any sign of life from that party at all. Therefore, Sinn Féin directs all its ink at the Labour Party. Just in case any of Deputy Ferris's ink jets missed their target, half a dozen colleagues weighed in to misrepresent the position of the Labour Party before and since the general election. I made plain in June 2010, when the Fianna Fáil-led Government established the McCarthy group, that given the crisis inflicted on us the Labour Party was prepared to examine each case on its merits but was not in favour of the disposal of strategic State assets. That was our position after the general election and it remains so. That is why the programme for Government committed the new Government to the sale of non-strategic assets to a value of €2 billion.

Why have we now agreed a figure of €3 billion with the troika? This is essentially for two reasons. First, we will get €1 billion back to reinvest in order to realise the productive potential of the economy. Second, it was the best that we could negotiate against a backdrop of an expectation on the part of the troika arising from the original memorandum of understanding that the assets disposal programme would raise €5 billion.

When the Fianna Fáil-Green Party Government put our country into hock, it was in a state of complete dysfunction. Not a single Minister was prepared to lead the negotiations with the IMF, European Union and European Central Bank. They emerged, however, to sign away the country's economic sovereignty. On 29 September 2008, they signed away the deeds of this country in the most reckless gamble by any government in any modern democratic state. At the very first engagement between the troika and the new Government, it was made plain that the troika's expectation was that €5 billion in assets would be sold off and that the proceeds would be used exclusively to write down debt. No figure was used in the original memorandum of understanding and, I presume, this is because the general election was imminent.

Gradually, the new Government has persuaded the troika that asset sales to the scale of €5 billion were unrealistic in the lifetime of the programme and, more important, that it is in the best interest of the revival of our economy that we be free to reinvest a significant proportion of the proceeds. Against that background, the outcome announced by my colleague, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, is one hell of an improvement.

It was sad to listen to the new leader of Fianna Fáil, who has the distinction of being one of the 15 men and women who surrendered or economic sovereignty, arguing on "Morning Ireland" that the original memorandum of understanding caused the establishment of the McCarthy group in order to improve the efficiency of the gas and electricity sector. One would have thought that the history was too recent for Deputy Martin to forget that the Government of which he was at least a pavilion member had set up the McCarthy group five months before what he calls the original memorandum of understanding was issued.

Further, the very first of the terms of reference given to the McCarthy group in June 2010, when no bailout was anticipated, was to consider the potential for asset disposals in the public sector, including commercial State bodies, in view of the indebtedness of the State. That was the mandate given to Mr. Colm McCarthy and his group. There is something pathetic about our now having to listen to Deputy Martin attempt to rewrite history, Deputy Ó Cuív signal that Fianna Fáil is opposed to the sale of State assets and Deputy Fleming pretend, as he did last night, that Fianna Fáil was only selling State assets in the belief that "Some 100% of the sale of any State asset should be used for job creation."

How can a Member of this House make such a claim when the record of the terms of reference given by his Government to the Review Group on State Assets and Liabilities is so clear? The only conclusion that one can reach is that the new Fianna Fáil is like the old Fianna Fáil; when in trouble it reaches for the Bart Simpson defence. In the case of Sinn Féin, it is a case of continuing to hope that circumstances will get worse in the hope that, for it, circumstances will get better. It is a case of its continuing to forecast new horrors and hoping that nobody will recall the forecasts of doom that did not materialise. One should remember that Deputy Mary Lou McDonald forecasted there would be no referendum. She forecasted that the Government would not reverse the cut to the minimum wage and that inspecting septic tanks would cause fear to stalk the land.

I recall Deputy McDonald telling us that the Government would break up the ESB and that there would be no reduction in the troika interest rate. On and on she goes. Every day brings more disaster forecasts from Deputy McDonald than your typical fortune teller in the visiting circus.

Sinn Féin does not know what makes a State asset strategic, and Fianna Fáil knows only too well how to sell off strategic assets, as per the Eircom experience. As the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, said last night, an asset is not strategic simply because it is owned by the State. Therefore, in circumstances where there is only one lender available to the State, this Government has done exceptionally well to retain in State ownership the strategic assets and networks, contrary to what happened in the case of Eircom, and at the same time secure approval that one third of the proceeds will redound to the State for reinvestment purposes.

Only God could help our country if this Government were to fail because there is no alternative. This Government must succeed in returning our economy to balance because the sparsely populated Opposition benches are peopled by politicians, some of whom are discredited and burnt out. Others are interested only in party advantage, irrespective of the consequences, and a few should have found other outlets for their populist preening.

The contributions I have heard on this motion are beyond belief. Some of the canards have been repeated here, including the question as to why we should sell these assets in the very low market conditions obtaining at present. We have made it clear that we are not selling anything in the low market conditions that obtain at present. We have also made it clear that whereas the troika is forcing us to sell - it is a fraction of what it has forced Greece and Portugal to sell - it is not requiring us to timeline it in any way when market conditions are so bad.

I listened to an RTE programme on Saturday morning where the participants were impatient to the point of being irritated that we did not sell everything. They asked why we could not get on with it. The second half of the same programme was devoted to the difficulties being caused for the workers concerned and those who had shares in the ESOT. They can therefore take both sides of the road with them by asking on the one hand, why we are not selling everything now, and on the other hand asking about the poor workers who will lose their shares in the ESOT.

This is a misrepresentation of what we are about here. We are doing this because it is required of us by the only lender we have. We have agreed to dispose of non-strategic assets of approximately €2 billion in the programme for Government. We have agreed to €3 billion because that was the best we could secure agreement with the troika after it insisted on €5 billion with the previous Government. We have got €1 billion of that for reinvestment purposes in the productive potential of the economy which is, all in all, not a bad deal.

At some stage, some of those on the Opposition benches will have to come forward with some prescription to get us out of the difficulties we are in. They do not seem to accept that we are in difficulty, however. Last night, I head Sinn Féin's finance spokesman on a radio programme being asked what he would do now. He said: "Well, we could always get bilateral arrangements". He was then asked what that meant and he replied, "We might be able to get loans from Denmark or the United Kingdom". We are getting loans from the UK in terms of its subvention to Northern Ireland. Thanks be to God for the Queen's shilling or we would be in big trouble but I doubt if they will give us loans to run this part of the country. I doubt if Denmark would have much regard for us if we followed that advice and were thrust into penury.

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