Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)

We argue for the retention of these assets in public ownership not purely from an ideological position, although we are politically and ideologically committed to public ownership and public provision of essential and strategic services and we make no apology for that. That is our view. Crucially, we also make this argument on a pragmatic basis because the assets in question are valuable. The Minister of State, Deputy O'Dowd, made a flippant argument concerning Aer Lingus suggesting that 25% of a holding does not give us much.

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