Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy has asked a number of questions. On his first question, I am not, as I have stated previously, an enthusiastic seller of State assets.

It would not be the first place I would look, but we inherited a programme. It was explained to us by representatives of the troika that they expected State asset sales of €5 billion. Clearly, we are not going to go into that territory. More importantly, when the Government came into being, any sale of State assets was carefully parsed and focused to ensure it would fit into general economic policy. We are three years in government and, as the Deputy can see, the sale of State assets has been rather limited.

I will come back to the funds achieved and spent. The Deputy asked about the rationale for the sale of Bord Gáis Energy. As he is aware, the Government, in particular, the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Pat Rabbitte, resisted the break-up of the ESB, although it was one of the drivers from the Commission. We are preserving it as a vertically integrated company. Most importantly, we are keen to ensure we do not make the mistakes of a previous Administration by selling off vital national infrastructure. In the past when eircom was sold, the State had to move back into that area. The gas and electricity distribution systems are being held in public ownership. We are selling the energy generating capacity of BGE because we need to create more competition within the market. As the Deputy can see, in recent times there has been an opening of competition with a suite of new offers to domestic and commercial energy users because of more players coming into the market. This was occurring before the sale was completed. There is a logic in this and a good reason for it.

I have set out the position on the funds achieved to date. However, until all of the processes are complete, I will be unable to give the Deputy a definitive account of how much in total we are to get or its phasing. However, I can give him some detail of how it is to be determined. As he is aware, under EUROSTAT, we cannot bring in the book value in one fell swoop. I will give him exact details of how we are to expend it: it is to be spent, largely, in the creation and maintenance of jobs in the construction sector.

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