Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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170. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will list all State-owned companies or companies that the State has had shares in that have been sold in the past five years and in the past ten years, and list them in tabular form. [44740/15]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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The Report of the Review Group on State Assets and Liabilities, published by my Department in April 2011, listed the Irish State companies that had been sold since 1991.  The only company in that list in which shares were sold in the past 10 years was Aer Lingus (2006).

In relation to the Commercial State sector, which comprises the companies for which I am primarily responsible, the additional companies in which shares were sold in more recent years, under the Government's State Assets Disposal Programme, were Bord Gáis Energy, ESB's shareholdings in two joint venture operations in the UK and Spain respectively, and the remaining State's shareholding in Aer Lingus.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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171. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will list in tabular form all State-owned companies and companies that the State has shares in. [44741/15]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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As the Deputy is aware, State-owned companies are used for a variety of reasons including, for example, not for profit companies established to achieve certain policy objectives or implement certain government policies via a separate and distinct implementation body, with its own appropriate corporate governance framework.  At the other end of the scale, the State also owns a much smaller group of companies, generally referred to as commercial State bodies, which operate in the market place on a commercial basis.  Some State companies, in turn, establish further subsidiary companies for commercial or operational reasons.

In the timeframe available to me for responding to the Deputy's question - in light of the detailed and extensive review and consultative process required - it would be very challenging for my Department to produce a definitive comprehensive list of every company which has been established by any Government Department or agency or State body.

However, a list and detailed examination of the companies in the commercial state sector - which is the area for which I am primarily responsible - was set out in the Report of the Review Group on State Assets and Liabilities published by my Department in April 2011.  There has been some restructuring of the sector since that report was produced, notably in relation to Ervia (formerly Bord Gáis Éireann), Coillte and Bord na Móna, but the only significant addition since that report is the establishment of Irish Water in 2013.