Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the extent to which the sale of State assets is proposed as a means of achieving budgetary targets in the coming year; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43778/12]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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None of the potential receipts from the State assets disposal programme are to be used as a means of achieving the budgetary targets set for the coming year. Instead, as the House will be aware, it has been agreed with the Troika that all of the Government’s proceeds from the programme will be available, in one shape or another, to support job creating initiatives in the economy. Half of the proceeds will be available to fund employment enhancing projects of a commercial nature. The other half, while destined eventually to pay-down debt, will, in the first instance, be constituted as a fund to underpin additional lending into Ireland, for example by the EIB, in support of further investment in job-creating initiatives.