Sean Barrett (Independent)

I welcome the Minister and it is always interesting to hear his views. I welcome the mention in his speech of auctioning of the broadcasting spectrum. Auctions are important beauty contests which lead to massive legal costs afterwards because those judged to be not beautiful enough tend to have large numbers of lawyers. A straight auction properly organised by the Department, with the money going into the Exchequer would be better than what has occurred previously.

The Minister spoke about the vigorous competition in the energy sector and the prices being achieved. The McCarthy report published in April suggests we have a long way to go to get a fully efficient energy sector. Therefore, I hope we are targeting not only the average price as reported, but also the lowest prices. The McCarthy puts forward some ideas in that regard and I will return to them later.

I support the selling of the minority stake in the ESB. As I understand from the McCarthy report, wage costs in the ESB are extremely high, particularly the high wage of the chief executive, which I am aware the Minister and his colleagues have tried to tackle. We would have a counterweight against those high costs if there were some private sector investors in the company. What we might call the monopolistic rents in the ESB - acquired because of its traditional monopoly position - and also the threat that it can turn off the lights have allowed wage costs to increase dramatically. Based on the McCarthy report, the CEO earns almost four times as much as the Taoiseach. I do not see the case for that.

What is required in the case of the energy efficiency programmes is publicity. It seems strange that when the benefits accrue so manifestly to people to have their houses insulated, they require a subsidy.

The idea of postcodes has been around for some time. It is much easier to send a letter in somebody in Leitrim or Donegal than it is to someone in Fermanagh because of the need for a postcode there. What benefits do postcodes generate? What do they offer, apart from making it more complicated to remember addresses? I have often wondered why this ideas is still being proposed. Perhaps the Minister has some thoughts on that.

Since this country had to be rescued on 1 December 2010, accountability has become a requirement. An issue in this regard which falls within the Minister's ambit is the huge floods in Cork some winters ago. The question of what caused those floods has not been resolved to the satisfaction of the people of Cork city. The responsibility appears to lie between the ESB, which is under the Minister's area, and Cork City Council. We were extremely lucky there were no fatalities as a result. What measures are in place to ensure we do not have a recurrence?

The preface to the McCarthy proposals is that given the over-borrowed nature of the State's balance sheet, asset disposal is inevitable. I support the Minister's proposal in that regard. In particular, we should aim to get out of banking, particularly zombie banking, very quickly and sell Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide and NAMA. We must get our economy working again and these national entities are unwanted as far as I am concerned.

With regard to the point the Minister made regarding broadband, the Comptroller and Auditor General is much less optimistic about our progress and points to very high average costs of €1,180 per subscriber. The forecasts that 126,000 people would apply for a scheme were hugely optimistic as only 35,500 did so. Broadband was given apple pie status by some of its proponents, but as often happens, the Minister and the Minister for Finance have had to pick up the bill.

McCarthy points out that the general performance of State companies has resulted in rapidly increasing indebtedness and failure to provide for pension fund liabilities. We should look at some of the proposals put forward in his report. The Irish Academy of Engineering calls for significant cost reductions in the energy sector and calls on the Minister to revise downwards wind penetration. It also suggests that the proposed investment in renewables up to 2015 should be greatly curtailed. We are approximately 42% worse off in GDP per head than was expected when the national development plan was being drawn up. It is necessary that Government Departments, particularly in meeting IMF targets, review many of their activities. Given the problems raised in the Wright report, the Department of Finance did not have the requisite expertise for this. It is to be hoped that this Minister has in his Department and available to him the ability to tackle the problems documented by McCarthy in Bord Gáis Éireann, the ESB and the other companies under his control. It is essential from the national point of view that they participate in getting our finances back in order and making the country competitive again.