Vol. 768 No. 2
6Deputy Gerry Adams asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will provide, in tabular form, the total public sector pay bill and public sector pension bill month on month from end of June 2011 to the end of May 2012. [28260/12]
This is a tabular reply so there is a slight difficulty. I will read the response and I will endeavour to help the Deputy with any of the tabulated particulars. I do not have a spare printed copy to give the Deputy.
The estimated gross monthly pay and pensions bill for the period June 2011 to April 2012, as notified by Departments and offices, in respect of public service workers, is set out in the table which follows the text of this reply. It should be noted that the estimated figures notified in respect of 2012 are subject to change due to ongoing reconciliation by Departments and offices as data becomes available. Month on month figures are significantly influenced by the number of pay days and pension lump sums paid in each month. The figures exclude pay and pension expenditure by local authorities and do not take account of the pension-related deduction on public service remuneration. Monthly returns in respect of the pay and pensions costs incurred in May 2012 by Departments are currently being collated.
|
2011 |
Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
|
€000 |
€000 |
€000 |
€000 |
€000 |
€000 |
€000 |
|
|
Pay |
1,218,901 |
1,346,138 |
1,207,863 |
1,371,495 |
1,255,210 |
1,242,065 |
1,368,478 |
|
Pension |
203,939 |
213,014 |
231,239 |
346,019 |
233,256 |
240,272 |
320,844 |
|
Total |
1,422,840 |
1,559,152 |
1,439,102 |
1,717,514 |
1,488,466 |
1,482,337 |
1,689,322 |
|
2012 |
Jan |
Feb |
March |
April |
|
€000 |
€000 |
€000 |
€000 |
|
|
Pay |
1,419,563 |
1,101,697 |
1,254,888 |
1,134,191 |
|
Pension |
258,533 |
241,922 |
392,902 |
247,975 |
|
Total |
1,678,096 |
1,343,619 |
1,647,790 |
1,382,166 |
I appreciate that the Minister cannot read a table of information so I will bear this in mind for future questions.
I can but -----
I ask the Minister to provide the figures in respect of the pay bill for the months at the start and end of the period as set out in the tabulated return, the top and tail figures for June 2011 and May 2012 and likewise in respect of the pension bill.
In June 2011, total pay was €1,218,901,000. The pension bill for the same month was €203,939,000, a total pay and pension bill in June 2011 of €1,422, 840,000. In April 2012, total pay was €1,134,191,000. The total pension bill payable in April 2012 was €247,975,000, giving a total pay and pension bill of €1, 382,166,000.
We have had this discussion before in respect of the pay and pension bill. The Minister's strategy from the outset in respect of what he terms reform was simply to cut out head count, to reduce the pay and pensions bill. He regarded this as a major savings initiative. The report of the Croke Park implementation group is due to be published today and this question is related. We have never got to the bottom of the real savings to the Exchequer in net terms as a result of all of the cutbacks and the hacking away of the public service and the loss of staff from the system. This is the nub of the issue. The manner in which the Minister deals with what he calls reform in the public sector is wrong-headed. It is not just about head count. I have set this out in some detail on other occasions.
I acknowledge we are discussing the top and tail figures from the tabulated return but for all the bluster and the hardship endured by the front line staff, the savings are not significant. To return to a bugbear of mine, it highlights the real pity of the Minister's failure to address the issue of very high pay. I refer in particular to those in the public and Civil Service who are on salaries of €100,000 and above and the kind of pension pots that still persist to this day, along with the exceptional payments made to people when they exit employment. These are all live issues.
The Deputy has been consistently wrong on every issue. She regards rhetoric as being a substitute. I suggest she reads the report of the implementation group which is published today. Head count is one element but it also includes fundamental reform. This reform is accruing real benefits in monetary terms to the State. It is fanciful to say what the Deputy has just stated and to talk about month by month figures because there are variants within months such as particular issues which arise and the number of pay days in a month and so on. One must look at the whole period in question and this is what has been done independently by the implementation group. It has indicated that in the 12-month period under review from the end of March 2011 to the end of March 2012, a total of €650 million in payroll savings have been made. Deputy Fleming shares the Deputy's view that this is abated by a pension contribution but people have paid for 40 years for their pensions and this is included in the arithmetic anyway - unless the Deputy is suggesting they should not receive their pensions. The vast majority are ordinary workers and the vast majority of pensions are modest in size.
The real savings in pay terms is €650 million in a year. The non-pay savings amounts to an additional €370 million. This is as a result of a change in Garda rosters, a change to which had been discussed for the past 40 years. There has been a change in the rosters in the health service. A total of 4,500 people have been deployed in the health service in the past year and this could not have been done without the Croke Park agreement. A total of 1,200 teachers have been redeployed, as well as 750 FÁS workers and 1,000 community welfare officers. There have been very great changes which include better procurement procedures. This has all been driven by the reform agenda which the Deputy is not bothered to actually read.
The Civil Service reform agenda includes more than 200 actions and I presented it to the committee of which the Deputy is a member. She knows I have established a reform office in my Department which is responsible for driving change. However, there are none so blind as those who will not see.
7Deputy Seamus Kirk asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the criteria he will apply when assessing the second annual report on the Croke Park Implementation Group; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28304/12]
35Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if the implementation body will provide a more robust and detailed breakdown of savings achieved, Department by Department, agency by agency, in its second annual review due to be published in June. [28256/12]
I propose to answer Questions Nos. 7 and 35 together.
The implementation body has completed its second annual review and published this morning its second annual report of progress under the Croke Park agreement. In my view, the body has once again produced a very comprehensive, detailed and robust report. The report analyses the pay and non-pay efficiency savings being delivered under the agreement. It also examines the change and reform being delivered in each sector of the public service and highlights examples of improved productivity that have been achieved as the decreased number of staff respond to increased demand for many public services.
The body has found that pay bill savings in the order of €650 million were achieved between April 2011 and March 2012, driven primarily by a significant reduction in staff numbers of 11,530. Furthermore, the body sought to factor in an estimate for planned recruitment to fill critical positions later this year, following the retirement of some 8,000 staff in the first quarter of this year, in order to arrive at an estimate of the sustainable pay bill savings that might be achieved. This yields an estimated net sustainable pay bill saving of €521 million. In addition, the body found that €370 million in administrative efficiencies or non-pay savings were achieved.
The body engaged external financial advisors to undertake an independent verification of the savings being reported in the case of a small sample of projects. Following a tendering process, Grant Thornton were engaged to evaluate four projects. They found that the savings reported by management in each of the four projects were reasonable estimates of savings; the methodology used for each project was found to be acceptable; and the agreement is playing a significant role in facilitating the implementation of the savings initiatives in each case. The Grant Thornton report was published in parallel with the report of the implementation body.
The Minister has given a glowing account of what is contained in the second report of the implementation group but I asked what are his criteria for assessing the report. I note the figures for the reduction in staff numbers are good and the public sector pay bill has been reduced and I note the non-pay savings. What has been the cost of the severance payments for the 11,500 staff who left this year? I would estimate the average cost would be at least €70,000 per person. What is the cost? It is not in that report. Maybe they will say it is not their job, but it is certainly the Minister's job to inform this House of the cost of the severance payments.
I also want the Minister to clarify the figures supplied by his Department. Will he comment on the fact that the public sector pay bill from 2009 to 2011 fell by 4% per annum, whereas the figures from 2012 to 2015 are only to fall by 1.75%? The chart in the report refer to a gross public sector pay bill in 2009 of €17.5 billion and compares it to the net pay bill in 2015, but that is nonsense. The report does not even compare, in the same sentence, gross or net figures with their equivalents. It mixes and matches them to give a bigger figure, which does not tally with the chart that is printed there.
Does the Deputy have the report in front of him?
I have, yes.
If he looks at page 4 he will see, in table 3, the Exchequer pay bill in gross terms for each year from 2009 to 2015. It is comparing exactly like with like across the top, beginning with the 2009 gross figure of €17.514 billion and ending in 2015 with the Exchequer gross figure of €14.6 billion. It is therefore comparing like with like. Has the Deputy read the table at all? I was asked a question on the "News at One" on foot of the Deputy's question, saying there were no pension figures in it, but they are on the same page in the next table. The Deputy should read the tables before he asks questions and issues statements.
I asked the Minister a question about severance costs, not about pensions.
I will answer that separately.
I want that figure either now or in the immediate future. It is not there. The HSE's chief executive told the Committee of Public Accounts that it is costing €380 million up front to achieve a saving of €80 million net per annum in the HSE. He broke down those figures at the Committee of Public Accounts. The Minister has misread his own chart. The bottom line on chart No. 3 refers to an Exchequer pay bill net of PRD, public related deduction, which goes from €16.7 billion in 2009 to €13.7 billion in 2015. That is a reduction of €3 billion, yet the figure in the chart is €3.8 billion. That figure is not a correct assessment of the bottom line the Minister quoted. It is a simple fact that the Minister quoted the wrong figure.
The Deputy wants to mix and match himself now.
He said the gross figures were not there, but they are in the published report. This is not my report; it is from the implementation body. Let me be quite clear because we can lose things in figures. The bottom line is that in the reference period in question we have reduced the pay bill, independently validated not by my Department but by the implementation body, in gross terms by €650 million. There will be some add back because it involves 11,500 people leaving the service. I have indicated that there will be some recruitment this year. They have made an attempt to quantify what that might cost, indicating that the net payroll savings will be of the order of €520 million. By 2015, our aim is to reduce the public pay bill from its peak by €3.8 billion gross or €3.3 billion net of pension. That is a significant reduction in anyone's language.
I accept Deputy McDonald's point that a reduction in numbers is only part of this whole dynamic. The reform side of it is as important, which is what I want to concentrate on in order to get different delivery mechanisms and rosters. For example, we want to ensure we are deploying gardaí when they are most needed and that we have optimum use of resources in hospitals so that staff will match equipment availability. That is the drive for reform that is happening in parallel to the reduction in numbers. The fact that we are doing that in an atmosphere of industrial peace is a great credit to public service workers.
On that note, I would be the first to acknowledge and give credit to people working within the public service and Civil Service. Here is the Minister's difficulty, however - he has a figure of €3.3 billion, which is his target.
That goes to the point that has been raised repeatedly with the Minister and at the Committee of Public Accounts, which is that we need the net figures. Aside from any value judgment one might make on the rights and wrongs of the process, including the effect it is having on the front line, it is entirely proper and legitimate that we are given the net figures. We have had to question individual Accounting Officers to try to get to the bottom of what the figures actually are. It is much more useful for us, as legislators involved in public policy, to have net figures. The Minister has a net target so he should be able to give us the net figures also.
A question please, Deputy.
Here is my question to the Minister - he says it is not just about a head-count, but is also about reform. The Minister has been more than cautious in addressing issues of culture within the public sector, particularly at the upper echelons. He has almost been afraid to deal with some of the obvious issues, including high pay and pension pots. The Minister has run away from that. Redeployments have happened, as have cuts for civil and public servants on modest incomes, and they are feeling the pain as a result. When it comes to playing the game with the big boys, however, it strikes me that the Minister does not have the belly for it.
The Deputy is either living in a bubble or is deliberately ignoring the facts, because no Minister has been more proactive in reducing high-level pay than I have. I set the ceiling for civil servants at €200,000. As of now, no civil servant is paid more than €200,000.
The French President does not earn €200,000.
The reality is that we have pushed people's salaries down.
Yes, so what is the Minister's point?
We introduced a referendum to cut judges' pay. I have introduced new financial emergency measures in the public interest to implement that and other reductions, including pensions to further abate those with high public service pensions. It is absolutely wrong to say that we have not been active on that front. It is popular to trot out the same old thing and Deputy McDonald is addicted to popular phrases as opposed to reality. The head-count issue is important because we need to reduce public service numbers, but the Deputy is right in that it is not the solution in itself. We need reform in order to do things differently and that is why we are engaging through the implementation body with the sectoral committees to bring about real reform in service delivery. We are doing things differently, including shared services. The Civil Service shared human resource service is in the process of being set up, and we will follow that through with other shared services, including payroll management and pension costs. We are identifying leave arrangements, including sick leave, and are currently in the Labour Court on that matter. We are moving on a variety of fronts.
If the Deputy is interested, we will come back to the committee again to present the latest instalment of where we are on the 200 aims of the civil servants' reform programme. We are ambitious and are doing things that have not been done in a generation.
The Minister is far from ambitious.
I did not get a figure on severance costs.
We are almost out of time, but I will allow Deputy McDonald to put a brief question.
I cannot let this pass. The Minister is blowing his trumpet about a €200,000 pay cap.
I can rely on Deputy McDonald to keep blowing her trumpet.
Hold on a second. Does the Minister know that the Finnish prime minister earns €129,000 and the French president does not earn €200,000?
The Deputy has already made that point.
What bubble is the Minister in when he imagines that a salary of €200,000 is some cruel and unusual punishment or hardship? That is ludicrous.
How much is Deputy Adams earning?
The Minister clearly does not have the belly for-----
How many salaries is Deputy Adams in receipt of?
-----that segment, which arguably is the most in need of reform. The Minister has run away from that matter.
A final reply from the Minister.
When the Deputy runs out of truth, she puts words in my mouth. I never said anything about cruel and unusual punishment.
The Minister did so in committee some weeks ago.
The Deputy can shout me down if she wishes. I regard that level of salary as high. That is the reason the Government set it as a ceiling for the Taoiseach. Ministers are paid less than that. In net terms, the Taoiseach earns 44% less than a Taoiseach did in 2008 and Ministers are earning 40% less. They are still on a handsome salary; there is no doubt about that. However, we should acknowledge what has been done. Deputy McDonald acknowledges nothing, except herself. She does not remember her party's past and is only interested in the sins of others. In truth, we have a reform agenda which we are delivering on. A report independently validated shows the progress made. The Deputy should for once have the good grace to acknowledge the hundreds of thousands of public servants who are driving reform and making the change.
They are not earning €200,000.
I happen to be the Minister with responsibility for doing this. The Deputy might some time have the good grace to acknowledge their efforts in the national interest.
8Deputy Dara Calleary asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the number of agency and contract staff currently employed in the public sector; the mechanism in place for monitoring and managing the associated costs; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28294/12]
As the Deputy is no doubt aware Ireland is committed under the EU-IMF programme to reducing the overall size of the public service pay bill.
Over the past number of years, enhanced numbers, monitoring systems and multi-annual employment frameworks have been put in place. These arrangements will be strengthened to ensure that effect is given to Government decisions on public service numbers, including temporary staff.
The Government is committed to reducing public service numbers to 282,500 by the end of 2015 as part of its reform agenda. The overriding objective is to have a more customer focused, leaner, efficient and better integrated public service which delivers maximum value for money. However, I wish to make clear that it is part of the day-to-day function of the management of all public bodies to assess, budget and plan for current and ongoing staffing requirements within existing resources. Again, it is a matter for local management to determine the appropriate recruitment method for such temporary staff. This data is not held centrally.
In the case of my own Department, there are 21 persons currently working in a non-established capacity on fixed-term contracts and contracts of indefinite duration . In addition, there is one contractor working in the IT unit in the role of senior technical network service administrator. The IT unit undertakes a market exercise each year to fill the senior technical role position. The Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General, which is under the aegis of my Department, currently has ten contract audit staff, whose work is expected to amount to approximately 4.4 whole-time equivalents in the calendar year. The staff are all professionally qualified and assist that office during periods of peak demand for audit services. The use of these contract staff is fully sanctioned and is limited by the amount of sanction granted. The office also has two whole-time equivalent agency staff who provide front of house security and reception-telephony services and eight students on internship from the University of Limerick, who work with audit teams for about nine months during the year before returning to their studies. The office provides any information requested of it to my Department on monitoring and managing costs.
As data on the number of agency and contract staff currently employed in the public sector is not held centrally it would be a matter for individual Departments to provide details to the Deputy in respect of their agency and contract staff.
I thank the Minister for his reply, the final sentence of which answers my question. I was not asking about the number of contract staff in the Minister's Department or in the Comptroller and Auditor General's office, although I am surprised at the numbers given by the Minister in that regard, but about my hobby horse, the health service, where there are vacancies in hospitals countrywide for nurses and so on.
There are many agency nurses in our hospitals, in respect of whom there are separate staffing schedules and rotas, and to whom the embargo does not apply, which I understand.
A question, Deputy, please.
Will the Minister make it his business to get this information compiled centrally so that somebody at Government level has a handle on it? It is not on to have this information dispersed with no one knowing what is going on.
I understand the Deputy's concern and will try to address it. It is a matter of annoyance that this sector is always a little later than every other in providing information to me. The Deputy might consider having the HSE invited to a meeting of the Joint Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform on this issue, which debate I will listen to with great interest.
I asked the same question of the Minister in the autumn. As per the Minister's reply, I sought and obtained, and continue to receive, statistics on the number of contract and temporary staff in the public sector from various agencies operating under the aegis of his Department and, crucially, the comparison between the cost to the Exchequer of employing agency staff versus direct employees.
It seems to me that a Government that is willing and able to impose brutal cuts and austerity on people on social welfare such as rent allowance and so on and on the incomes of workers should show the same zeal in terms of ensuring we are getting value for money when it comes to the massive amount of outsourcing that is resulting from the cuts in the number of directly employed people within the public service.
Thank you, Deputy.
Is it the Minister's intention to have a centrally held record of the number of agency staff employed across the public sector and a comparison in terms of how much it would cost if those people were directly employed?
This question was not tabled by the Deputy. Other Deputies wish to get answers to their questions. I call the Minister to reply.
I am not going to be prescriptive about this because there will be cases where agency workers are the best way of meeting an urgent public demand for services and where, without them, central services might not function. There might be a case for that.
Deputy Fleming is looking at the broader picture.
If the Minister continues to cut numbers he will need more of them.
The reality is we are faced with reducing the total volume of money we can borrow. The only people who will lend us money have attached conditions to it. We can stick our heads in the ground and pretend that is not a reality. We need to reduce the quantum of money we are borrowing. There are a variety of ways of doing so, including cutting services, making them more efficient and reducing the numbers involved in service delivery. These are hard decisions. I know the Deputy is not interested in engaging with them and prefers the soft option that there is no need for retrenchment or taxation of any kind.
We need to know if it is saving money.
Please allow the Minister to continue his reply.
I take the final part of the Deputy's question quite seriously. We do need to ensure that wherever we are engaging with agency or temporary staff there is a robust business case for it and that it makes economic sense. That is part of the culture which I am trying to inculcate across all State agencies and Departments.
9Deputy Jonathan O’Brien asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will provide an update on the progress made regarding the Regulation of Lobbying Bill. [28249/12]
As the Deputy will be aware the programme for Government contains a commitment to introduce a statutory register of lobbyists and rules governing the conduct of lobbying. In addition, the public service reform programme, launched in November 2011, contains a commitment to prepare legislation to meet these objectives through the publication of legislation early in 2013. My Department is currently engaged in developing proposals for consideration by me and, in due course, the Government on implementation of these commitments.
A review of international approaches to the regulation of lobbyists was commenced late last year. In December 2011, submissions were invited from interested parties on key issues relating to options for the design, structure and implementation of an effective regulatory system for lobbying in Ireland. The consultation process was based on the agreed OECD Principles for Transparency and Integrity in Lobbying which was the subject of a recommendation by the OECD Council in February 2010. The response to the consultation process was positive, with approximately 60 organisations and individuals submitting views to my Department.
A policy paper is being finalised on the basis of further research and analysis, in particular on the key issues highlighted in the submissions received as well as from subsequent meetings with some contributors to the consultation process undertaken. I intend to publish this paper shortly to communicate the main elements of the proposed lobbying legislation. Following publication of the paper, a public seminar will be held in July to provide a further opportunity for discussion on the proposals, in particular on the key implementation issues raised during the consultation process.
Preliminary work has commenced on the preparation of an outline scheme of a lobbying Bill for approval by the Government in due course based on the lobbying regulations in other jurisdictions as well as several Private Members' Bills published on this topic over the years.
I thank the Minister. Perhaps I did not catch it but did the Minister give an indicative date for the publication of the Bill?
I intend to have a paper published very shortly but the Bill itself will be published early next year.
The reason I raise this is because while I am aware of the process undertaken with regard to the submissions, I am also aware that in March the Minister told us he would publish a paper within weeks. This month his party leader, the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Eamon Gilmore, stated the heads of the Bill were expected by the end of the summer. In sum, my concern is that there is some foot dragging on this. I do not think I need to emphasise to the Minister how important this legislation is. It needs to be robust and fit for purpose but it also needs to be published. We need a firm timetable.
I could not agree more with the Deputy. She is aware I published a Private Members' Bill on this subject but it is a complicated issue. Lobbying is legitimate and every citizen and representative group should be able to lobby, whether it is a group representing the unemployed, farmers, single parents or anybody else. The issue is that it must be done in a regulated way that is transparent and in accordance with best practice and we also need to avoid undue influence in the hands of some. This is an important part of the body of legislation on transparency the Government will enact. I would welcome the Deputy to the forum we will hold in July to hear ideas. I will produce papers and the submissions received to date and we will see how we can take it forward. We are already working on the draft heads of the Bill so the Tánaiste is correct in this regard. It may be preferable to bring the heads of Bill to the committee rather than the completed Bill. I have an open mind on this and I will be interested to hear the Deputy's views on it.
10Deputy Mick Wallace asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform in view of his proposal to use funds realised from the sale of State assets for job creation, his views on European research which shows that privatisation has a largely negative effect on employment and working conditions; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26482/12]
Although I am unaware of the particular research to which the Deputy's question refers, and he might indicate what it is as I could not find it, I would not necessarily accept that such findings can be extrapolated either generally or to the particular context of the programme of State asset disposals I announced last February.
In dealing with the troika it has been the Government's consistent position that funds released from asset disposals should be used to support job creating initiatives in the economy. After long-term negotiations, I recently reached agreement with troika representatives that all such proceeds would be available, in one shape or another, for this purpose. 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 guarantee additional lending into Ireland, for example by the European Investment Bank, in support of further investment in job-creating initiatives.
Apart from the receipts from the sale of assets which the Government will retain for reinvestment, the sale of certain business units of State companies may also offer the prospect of access to significant new capital to grow these businesses, which might not have otherwise have been available given the current position in capital markets. The Bord Gáis Energy sale and the proposed divestment of some of the ESB's non-strategic power generation assets also present an opportunity to achieve wider economic benefits by introducing new players into the Irish energy market thereby leading to increased competition, which should, hopefully, increase efficiency, drive down costs and lead to reduced prices for consumers.
Last April's announcement of the establishment of the new Irish water utility under the umbrella of Bord Gáis Éireann amply demonstrates the Government's continued confidence in the semi-State sector as both a vehicle for large-scale infrastructural investment and a driver of innovative change, and we will continue to ensure the State sector plays a vital part in the generation of jobs.
The research to which I referred in the question was an EU funded project entitled Privatisation of Public Services and the Impact on Quality, Employment and Productivity. It examined the impact of privatisation and liberalisation of public services in five European countries, namely, Austria, Belgium, Germany, Sweden and the UK. Case studies across six different sectors found that following liberalisation and privatisation the main company objective, that is the reduction of production costs, was achieved primarily at the cost of workers mainly through the worsening of working conditions. The report states, "The balance of evidence suggests that liberalisation and privatisation have been primarily associated with employment reductions rather than with employment creation and that, at the same time, employment within the target sectors has become increasingly part-time, often having greater recourse than when they were publicly delivered services to self-employed, and perhaps also temporary, workers".
The project concurs with many others in its findings that positive effects and better performance are mostly the result of superior regulation rather than of competition or private corporate initiative. Liberalisation and privatisation of public services have largely negative effects on employment and working conditions and varied effects on productivity and service quality. I am not sure whether the Government has conducted a cost benefit analysis on how this will work out. Will it really create extra quality jobs?
If I cannot find the report he mentioned I will get my office to contact the Deputy to ensure the review group takes full account of it. The experience of privatisation is not uniform and it depends on what is privatised and the method used. Our experience in the State of the privatisation of Telecom Éireann was disastrous in my judgment. It was a wholly wrong decision to privatise a strategic company like that, which is why we will not go down this road. What we have put on the table to meet the troika requirement is the energy division of a State company. We already have a very elaborate company, namely, the ESB, in electricity generation. Do we need two State companies competing with one another or would it be better to have a dynamic private sector company competing with a State company and let the State company match it? Earlier we debated the fairly ludicrous situation we had in the past where we had two State companies in the energy sector, one of which was required by instruction from the Minister with responsibility for energy not to reduce its prices so the other State company could get a bigger market share. This was supposed to amount to competition but this is nonsense.
There are specific instances of privatisation being very successful and the Deputy will know the example of Great Island power station very well as it is not far from his home base. Endesa, a private company, has bought a mothball power station and is bringing national gas into the county, which is very important. It is investing heavily in bringing the power station back onstream.
I agree with the Minister with regard to the Great Island power station. However, I disagree with the notion that we should sell assets because the troika thinks we should do so. This is not healthy and it will not create jobs in the long term. The Great Island power station was lying idle and selling it to someone prepared to get involved at a commercial level was a good idea.
I agree with the Deputy.
Written Answers follow Adjournment.
