Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

If I cannot find the report he mentioned I will get my office to contact the Deputy to ensure the review group takes full account of it. The experience of privatisation is not uniform and it depends on what is privatised and the method used. Our experience in the State of the privatisation of Telecom Éireann was disastrous in my judgment. It was a wholly wrong decision to privatise a strategic company like that, which is why we will not go down this road. What we have put on the table to meet the troika requirement is the energy division of a State company. We already have a very elaborate company, namely, the ESB, in electricity generation. Do we need two State companies competing with one another or would it be better to have a dynamic private sector company competing with a State company and let the State company match it? Earlier we debated the fairly ludicrous situation we had in the past where we had two State companies in the energy sector, one of which was required by instruction from the Minister with responsibility for energy not to reduce its prices so the other State company could get a bigger market share. This was supposed to amount to competition but this is nonsense.

There are specific instances of privatisation being very successful and the Deputy will know the example of Great Island power station very well as it is not far from his home base. Endesa, a private company, has bought a mothball power station and is bringing national gas into the county, which is very important. It is investing heavily in bringing the power station back onstream.

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