Amendments Nos. 1, 4 and 5 are related and may be discussed together.
Nítrigin Éireann Teoranta Bill, 1993: Committee and Final Stages.
Section 1 agreed to.
SECTION 2.
I move amendment No. 1:
In page 2, paragraph (a), line 13, to delete "‘£100,000,000'" and substitute "‘£82,500,000'".
In regard to those amendments I believe we should examine the situation again before we commit ourselves to the full limits the Minister has in mind. It is important that we have a policy statement from the Minister at the earliest possible date regarding the strategy to be adopted by Nítrigin Éireann Teoranta and his Department. I question the wisdom of the Minister's proposal to bring in the National Treasury Management Agency. I believe the Minister, his Department and the Government should be the people who examine the situation. They have sufficient advisers and reports furnished to them. As a nation and as a Government we are tying ourselves up with agencies and committees. In the past many of the elected representatives were not nearly as well educated as the present Members of this House; yet, they managed to do their work without sending it off to committees and agencies. We are the people responsible, we are appointed to do our job and we should be able to do it ourselves. In regard to the money the Minister is proposing in this Bill for NET, I believe the amounts I have set out in my amendment should be sufficient.
Unfortunately I am not in a position to accept these amendments, although I understand and have considerable sympathy for the thinking behind them. On a different day I would be making the same argument.
I have considerable sympathy with the thinking behind them and on a different day I would support this argument. I am not one who throws money at State companies. It was mentioned earlier that B & I was disposed of; as Minister for Transport I disposed of it in a commercial way. We managed to maintain the jobs there and we resisted very strong demands for extra funding for the company. Finally, we arrived at a formula helpful to the workers.
My normal inclination would be to give less money than is necessary, but I have to stress we are not giving money here. We are simply paying the interest on a debt that began in 1975. We are still repaying it and also the accumulated losses between NET's commencement in 1975 and its restructuring in 1987. The figures I put forward allow for an additional £22 million. While the figure put forward in the amendments would limit that to £12 million. All advice, calculations and submissions from the company indicate that if I am not to come here regularly on this matter these are the correct amounts to seek. It is a choice between adopting them now or my returning here in one month's time to repeat this exercise. I regret I cannot accept the amendments for those practical and technical reasons.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment No. 2 not moved.
Amendment No. 3 is out of order. It is outside the scope of the Bill as read a Second Time.
Amendment No. 3 not moved.
Section 2 agreed to.
SECTION 3.
Amendment Nos. 4 and 5 not moved.
Section 3 agreed to.
Section 4 agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported without amendment, received for final consideration and passed.
Sitting suspended at 5.5 p.m. and resumed at 6 p.m.