Lorraine Higgins (Labour)

Following the sale of State assets, there is a general pattern of job losses as a result of investors seeking to acquire the best possible return on their investment when such a programme is undertaken by any government. We do not want a situation in which we are introducing a job creation fund with some of the moneys we will acquire from the sale of some of the non-strategic assets while at the same time we may have a close to corresponding job loss figures from the sale of these State assets. On that basis I ask if the relevant Department has conducted a thorough analysis of the job losses from the non-strategic State assets which are for sale. Further to this point I would also ask that any job creation initiatives employed on foot of the sale of these State assets would take careful consideration of regional deficiencies as regards employment figures so that places such as Galway East will properly benefit from any such job creation programme following the sale of these assets.