Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

Any progress on the privatisation of State-owned assets, meaning assets owned by the people, is not something to be pleased about. I ask the Minister to recognise the serious implications for the protection of jobs in the privatisation process. In an appalling development in 2009, 1,300 high-quality aircraft engine maintenance jobs were lost mainly at Dublin Airport when a multinational company, SR Technics, closed down peremptorily. Does the Minister accept this happened because of the privatisation of Team Aer Lingus? Does he recognise that vulture capitalists will move in to take ready-made assets when they are only interested in private profit, not the jobs and security of employment of Irish people? It is repulsive to a majority of people in this country that the troika, representing the interests of the financial markets and bondholders, dictates to this State - and that the dictation is acceded to by the Government - that public assets are sold off in this way rather than developed and invested in to create tens of thousands of jobs.

Is the report in The Irish Times today, that the troika is demanding Aer Lingus to be totally privatised at the beginning of next year, accurate?

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