Business Opinion/John McManus: Ministers must wonder why all commercial semi-states can't be more like Bord na Móna. Last week the Newbridge-based group slipped out its 2003 figures and quietly expounded on some modest expansion plans.

Contrast this with Aer Lingus, which wants to shed 1,300 staff, and An Post, which is closing SDS and would like to see the back of something like 1,700 staff. Industrial action is in the air at both companies and there is also the ongoing soap opera at Aer Rianta and the perpetual crisis at the ESB.

Bord na Móna by comparison is a haven of tranquillity, and official policy towards it is best summed up as benign neglect. Privatisation remains the corporate activity that dares not speak its name, even though any reading of the company's annual report begs the following questions.

The first is exactly what the purpose of the company is and the second - and closely related - question is whether there is any need for the State to remain as an investor. The answer to the first is not very clear and as a result the answer to the second has to be no.

According to the 2004 annual report released last week, Bord na Móna is continuing its move away from traditional peat processing "to innovative solutions-driven initiatives, which provide products and services in the environmental, renewable energy and waste management business sectors".

This is a long way from the company that was set up in 1948 to cut peat for power stations and domestic hearths. And which, like most of the other State companies, had to be backed by the Government because nobody else would.

These days, with the possible exception of its peat-milling business, there is nothing that Bord na Móna does that could not be done, and in most cases is not already being done by the private sector. There is no reason in this day and age for the Government to be involved in horticultural products, fuel-distribution and pollution-control products. Yet these businesses accounted for 73 per cent of last year's sales of €252.9 million.

Bord na Móna is rather more coy about the extent to which these divisions contributed to profits of €15.7 million after tax. As a result it is not possible to establish whether or not these businesses subsidise the milled peat business.

This is the part of the organisation that provides peat to the ESB for its power stations and - it can be argued - is a strategic business in which the State is justifiably involved. If it is loss-making, the argument can then be made that Bord na Móna needs to be involved in all these other businesses to subsidise it.

But even if this is the case, it is pretty flimsy argument. Peat-fired stations account for 7.9 per cent of electricity generation, but since the discovery of natural gas in Irish waters it is only the second most significant native energy source and by quite some distance. Natural gas accounts for over three-quarters of our native energy consumption every year. Any analysis also has to take into account the environmental damage done by peat harvesting.

The other argument for keeping Bord na Móna going is that it functions as some sort of massive outdoor relief scheme for the rural poor. It employs an average of 1,483 people, rising to 2,325 in peak season. Some 506 of these are employed in administration.

Taking the average number of employees and the payroll figure of €75 million, you get an average salary of €40,000, which would go a long way in those parts of Ireland that have not felt the lick of the Celtic Tiger. But at the same time it is hard to accept this as the raison d'etre for a State company in a country with full employment.

The case for the continued existence of Bord na Móna is thus pretty thin at best. It is hard to argue against breaking it up into its various contingent businesses and the absorbing by the ESB of the peat-milling business. And the fact that the company has finally cleared its debts means that there is no reason why it should not happen.

But don't hold your breath. Bord na Móna is a semi-state company and as such is part of the last line of defence of real union power in the Republic.

The big unions would appear to have all but given up on organising in the IDA-backed companies that are at the heart of our export-orientated economy. They also seem to have thrown the public and civil service to the wolves, Despite negotiating benchmarking, they have failed to come out and expose decentralisation for the madness that it undoubtedly is.

Instead the big unions, led by ICTU, seem to have dug in at the State companies and with some success, particularly at Aer Rianta and the ESB. Any suggestion of the break-up of Bord na Móna would no doubt trigger a letter from David Begg, the general secretary of ICTU, to the Minster in question (copied to the Taoiseach) saying something to the effect that the very basis of social partnership is threatened by such a move, etc.

So instead we shall continue with Board na Móna playing the role of favourite child in an otherwise dysfunctional family of State companies.

But from where the Taoiseach and his colleagues sit it is a small price to pay for keeping unions out of the likes of Intel and getting their way with decentralisation.