John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am ideologically opposed to the sale of State assets. Any car boot sale of the nation's assets is a sell-out of workers and taxpayers alike. Placing some of our key State assets in private hands would confer on the owners an unwarranted and a potentially hazardous degree of economic and social power, as has happened in other countries, not to mention augmenting the wealth of these private owners, diminishing the public treasury, impeding the public good and suppressing the rights of the people. Given the economic situation and the severe pressures on the public finances, what we should be doing is giving consideration to making public utilities more efficient and using what we have to drive the economy, but instead the Government is insulting people's intelligence by leading them up the garden path with promises of a job creation fund which would be nothing more than false economy. The Government exercises its ownership rights in these businesses on behalf of the people. The people own the land, not Fine Gael, the Labour Party, Independent Members, Fianna Fáil or anyone else. History has shown us that the sale of assets further destabilises the country and put thousands of people out of work.

Somebody mentioned the troika. We should not fudge on the facts. The provision for the sale of State assets is not coming from the troika but from the programme for Government, with an ambition to raise approximately €3 billion or so in hard cash. The EU-IMF memorandum of understanding does not mandate privatisation in whole or in part. What is more, the discussion on the sale of State assets in the memorandum does not take place in the fiscal section but rather in the section dealing with obstacles to competitiveness. I hope the Minister has read it because that is exactly what it states. Hence should any sale of assets take place, the object will be to improve our competitiveness, not to write down debt.

Selling harvesting rights will be a disaster for the economy and the environment in the long term and could have serious social consequences. Before any sale takes place, what consultations will take place with the shareholders - the people: rural communities, walkers, sports societies, environmentalists and workers in Coillte? The Minister has no right to sell anything or even negotiate its sale of without engaging in consultation with the shareholders. He knows as well as I do the history of harvesting rights. The prices achieved would be understated and understate the worth of the State's assets. All he has to do is look at what has happened in countries such as New Zealand and Sweden. This is one of the few countries in the world which is attempting to sell its forests, apart from some in South America. Why should we go down that road when the policy has failed? Sweden sold off a figure of 62%, but it took it back again because the privatisation of its forests had failed. The British Government abandoned proposals to sell off state-owned forests. I remind the Minister of the history of privatisation and the sale of forests throughout the world. It has resulted in diminished income for governments and poor working conditions for workers.

In 2009, the EU funded research project, Privatisation of Public Services and the Impact on Quality, Employment and Productivity, known as PIQUE, examined the impact of privatisation of public services in five European countries. It concluded that privatisation was achieved primarily at the cost of workers, mainly through the worsening of working conditions. Where the quality of services depended on a certain level of labour input the project found that service quality suffered as a result of privatisation. I want no hand or part in that legacy.

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