Dáil debates

Thursday, 10 July 2014

Strategic Banking Corporation Bill 2014: Committee and Remaining Stages

 

3:00 pm

Photo of Pearse DohertyPearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister has taken the discussion into sections 11 and 12. These are the key areas and we do not question the intention of the Minister to keep this in public ownership. The provision of the Bill provides for it to go into private ownership. That may be a precautionary measure or on the advice of the Attorney General. No one knows what the future holds and we may all want to get rid of this company because a better company may exist and we may want to sell it.

The problem I have with this is that the Minister can do this alone. The Minister mentioned there would be accountability by the Houses after the event and that is the real issue here. Deputy Boyd Barrett spoke about Uisce Éireann. If that company was to go into private ownership, it would require a resolution in the House. It would require legislative change. What we are saying is that if the Minister does not want to change the law, he should at least require a resolution in the House that gives him the democratic mandate to transfer what is a private company, whose shares are solely held by the Minister for Finance, into a variant of that, whether completely private or semi-private. This is the key issue for me.

I am not as concerned with regard to whether it is public or private. I am familiar with what the Minister has said in terms of the different rules that would apply under the Companies Act to a private company. The key concern is that section 12 facilitates - whether that is the Minister's intention or not - the sale of the shares into private hands, and it does this without requiring the approval of the Dáil. We could have a situation where the Minister wants to sell some shares one day and more on another. Obviously, he does not want to be required to change legislation all the time to do that. However, he should at least seek approval of the Dáil. That is the reason I believe the amendments I and Deputy Donnelly propose later would, if accepted, deal with this issue and with our legitimate concerns regarding section 12 - a section not in other Bills - being written into this Bill.

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