Ryan: Selling semi-state businesses makes no sense

SELLING the country’s semi-state commercial businesses should not be seen as a panacea for budgetary problems, according to Natural Resources Minister Eamon Ryan.

He said, despite calls to sell off assets held by companies such as the ESB and Bord Gáis, he did not believe it made business sense.

Mr Ryan said the companies should be seen as ongoing cash producers rather than a source of windfall.

“ESB, Bord Gáis, EirGrid and Bord na Móna are delivering for this economy and for Ireland. Last year these companies gave €320 million back to the exchequer in dividends and invested €1.9 billion in the wider economy,” he said.

The minister said he disagreed with Fine Gael’s proposal to sell some of the state assets. “Fine Gael is saying that we need to sell these companies to raise money for asset development. These companies are raising money on the debt markets. Why break them up when they are raising the capital? Why jeopardise the stimulus?”

Finance Minister Brian Lenihan has already charged the author of the Bord Snip Nua report, Professor Colm McCarthy, with investigating which state assets and semi-state companies could be off-loaded.

Fine Gael spokesman Leo Varadkar said the country was not being served by Mr Ryan’s refusal to address aspects of the semi-state sector and his party did not support the privatisation of essential services. “Fine Gael has advocated the privatisation of non-essential state assets which are not monopolies and we do not need to maintain in public ownership. These include ESB Power Gen, Bord Gáis Energy and ESB Customer Supply.”