Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is clear this is a right-wing Government, entrenched in the ideological obsessions of the right. The dismantling of social services, the vilification of the working class and the asset stripping of State services for private profit are examples of this ideology. Fine Gael stands clearly as the driver of this agenda, with Labour naively or cynically along for the ride. However, it is the people who are being taken for the ride. These policies do not just hurt this generation but future generations. The current incarnation of this agenda is the Gas Regulation Bill, which will allow the sale of Bord Gáis Energy, a division of Bord Gáis Éireann.

The Bill splits Bord Gáis into two companies. One is the network company, in control of pipes, maintenance and so on, which will be retained in State ownership. The second is the energy company, which is to be sold. Bord Gáis Energy is comprised of the following businesses - an energy supply business in Ireland, servicing over 825,000 customers in the gas and electricity markets, North and South; a 445 MW combined cycle gas turbine plant at Whitegate in County Cork; a large-scale portfolio of onshore wind assets; and Firmus Energy, an energy company operating in the Six Counties.

The sale of Bord Gáis Energy is part of the troika programme of sale of State assets. This is certainly what Labour Deputies will stress but, in reality, it is part and parcel of this Government's approach to public services and semi-State companies. Fine Gael has long believed in carving them up and passing the profit along to private hands, not that Fianna Fáil did not engage in this practice when it felt it would be accepted by the public. The debacle that was the sell-off of Telecom Éireann is evidence of that fact.

Bord Gáis Energy is a profitable company. In 2012 Bord Gáis Energy reported an EBITDA gross operating profit of €79.4 million, compared to €44.3 million in 2011, so we are actually talking about disposing of a profitable company but also a company which is increasingly profitable. Bord Gáis is by far the biggest player in the domestic gas market at present, with a 60.97% market share in June 2013.

Wholesale privatisation has been the agenda of many governments over the last 20 years, with countries such as Chile, New Zealand and Britain leading the charge, followed by the US and much of the EU. Some did so at the behest of the IMF and other lenders but many were driven by Reaganomics and Thatcherism. This malignant ideology denied the existence of society and yet set its shoulder to the wheel in aggressively dismantling that supposedly imaginary society in the name of profit. Over the past two decades, close to $1 trillion worth of state-owned enterprises have been privatised in more than 100 countries.

The troika and Fine Gael's promotion of privatisation is a clearly ideological approach in support of an ever-more discredited neoliberal economy and benefiting only a small group of transnational corporations. Their insistence on entrenching neoliberalism is also profoundly anti-democratic. When given the chance, European citizens have voted against privatisation, as was demonstrated in their resounding rejection of water privatisation in the 2011 referendum in Italy. Other citizens across Europe are building powerful anti-privatisation campaigns to stop public services being sold off. In the short term at least, restructuring and privatisation result in job losses, even in cases where the sector is growing and the economy is creating new employment opportunities, according to the OECD report on privatising state-owned enterprises.

Reports indicate that the sale of Bord Gáis Energy could generate proceeds in the region of between €1 billion and €1.5 billion, although some more recent estimates have been towards the lower end of that scale.

Half of the proceeds will be available to fund employment-enhancing projects of a commercial nature, with the other half destined to pay down debt. Experience from Greece has shown that the sale of state assets has not returned the expected profits, and projections have been revised down considerably. At the Labour Party conference in 2012, members voted to reject the sale of State assets. The people did not vote for the sell-off of Ireland but rather for its renewal.

This Bill is simply a continuation of the agenda we have had for 20 years in this country, an agenda which failed us so badly in telecommunications that widespread broadband access is still an issue in 2013, as is mobile telephone phone reception. Let us learn the lessons of other states and their privatised industries. Let us learn the lessons of our own mistakes. It was semi-State companies which brought this State into the 20th century, as in the case of Ardnacrusha and other impressive initiatives. The State did the job when private profiteers were too disorganised, petty or unambitious to fill the gap. We must ensure that Irish people and not multinational shareholders benefit from Bord Gáis Energy, and it is for this reason that we oppose the Bill. An innovative approach which brings Ireland forward must be at the core of what Bord Gáis Energy does. That obliges us to oppose this Bill and we urge colleagues to do likewise.

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