Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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Question 55: To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the amount of money he is seeking to achieve through the sale of semi-State assets and/or the sale of so called minority stakes in State assets. [28641/11]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Under the EU/IMF Programme of financial support for Ireland, the Government is committed to an ambitious programme of asset disposals, based on the Programme for Government and the report of the Review Group on State Assets and Liabilities. The Programme for Government includes a target of €2bn to be raised from the sale of non-strategic State assets. The Government has already decided that it is prepared to dispose of a minority stake in ESB. It has also agreed that it is prepared, in principle, to undertake further assets sales, but no decision has been taken in relation to any other State assets at this stage.

My Department and the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources are jointly chairing an inter-departmental group which is considering the best approach to the sale of a minority stake in ESB, including energy policy, regulatory, legal, financial and economic considerations. This group will report back to Government by end-November with a recommendation. Targets for receipts from the ESB minority sale will be determined by the outcome of this process. These targets will take account of the need to strike a balance between achieving the highest return and maintaining appropriate policy goals, bearing in mind the likelihood that pre-determined transactional targets do not result in the optimum market response.

A second group, to be led by my Department, has also been established to consider possible candidates for further assets sales in order to inform any further decisions that the Government may wish to make on this matter.