THE PROCEEDS generated by the sale of any State assets may be used in job-creation schemes, according to Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin.
Mr Howlin said yesterday the Government had succeeded in persuading the EU and IMF that money through such disposals would not necessarily have to be used to help pay off the country’s debts.
He said the EU and the IMF had agreed to consider any proposals to divert the proceeds from the sale of assets to job-creation projects “on a case-by-case basis”.
Mr Howlin accepted that the EU-IMF was “wedded to the notion” that the proceeds from the sale of such assets should be used to pay off debt. However, they had not closed the door on the argument that the funds might be used for job-creation initiatives.
“The view of the EU-IMF partners was to maintain the existing agreement that any asset sale or windfall or money coming into the Government coffers would be used to retire debt and of course there’s a compelling case for that.
“We have engaged with them and argued that where we have a viable case to make that we should have the facility to use that in job-creation initiatives, and it was agreed that we could make that case on a case-by-case basis and that’s what we intend to do.”
The Minister said the discussions on the use of asset sale proceeds for job-creation programmes were made during talks leading up to the first review of Ireland’s €85 billion international rescue plan, details of which were published last week.
Mr Howlin said a decision on the sale of assets would not be delayed.
He would put each of the review group’s report recommendations to the relevant Government departments and decide as soon as possible how to implement them.
He was speaking a day after the review group on State assets and liabilities published a report which details how up to €5 billion could be raised through selling semi-State companies.
The report also recommended a comparison of pay and conditions in commercial State companies with other firms both in Ireland and abroad.
In his initial reaction to the report Mr Howlin said people would be “surprised and shocked” at the details of some salaries in semi-State companies.
Meanwhile, the Environmental Pillar of the social partnership process has said any move to sell State forestry company Coillte is to be opposed by a coalition of 27 environmental organisations on the basis that Ireland “cannot afford to lose its 1.1 million-acre public forest estate in these difficult times”.
The group called on both Fine Gael and Labour to restate their pre-election commitments to the continued public ownership of Coillte – nominated for sale in the McCarthy report.
Speaking on behalf of the Environmental Pillar, which was set up in 2009, Andrew St Ledger of the Centre for Environmental Living and Training, said: “The cash generated from the sale of Coillte will be a meagre drop in the ocean of debt that Ireland owes.”
Plans by Britain’s Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government to sell off publicly-owned forests with a view to raising revenue to reduce its deficit were scrapped last February after a public outcry and intensive campaign, partly conducted on Facebook.
“Over half a million people signed the petitions, put up posters, held walks and talks in their forests, chipped in to buy advertising, proving the point that people power can make the difference,” Mr St Ledger said, calling for a similar campaign in Ireland.
He said it would “make no sense to sell an asset that, managed differently, can potentially earn the State a sustainable income in the long run to help pay off its debts”.