No fire sale but state’s need to cut costs and raise revenues remains

MUCH like his report into public expenditure, Colm McCarthy’s report on state assets presents a menu of options.

The Government is not obliged to implement every recommendation. Indeed, it is not obliged to implement a single one of them. But the reality, as McCarthy knows, is that the Government most likely will choose to implement some and ignore others.

The first McCarthy report — which bore his name because he chaired the group that produced it — examined public service spending, and recommended where €5.3 billion of cuts could be made.