THE GOVERNMENT will present a business plan at its next EU-IMF meeting next month for the running of NewERA, the body that will handle the sale of State assets.
The State wants to use the proceeds of the sale of State assets for growth and job creation rather than to pay down debt.
NewERA will also have responsibility for investment in a new water network, universal broadband access, an electricity and gas “smart grid” and a national bioenergy company. The new structure is expected to be formally up and running by the end of the month.
In the wake of the Cabinet decision last week to sell a minority stake in the ESB, measures for the establishment of the unit within the National Treasury Management Agency are being finalised.
The appointment of a director for NewERA is almost complete and other personnel from within and outside the public service are to be recruited.
The exact number of employees to be assigned has not been revealed, but “far less than 100”, said a Government spokesman.
Talks with the European Central Bank, the EU and the IMF about the role of the unit will take place next month with the presentation of a business plan for job growth rather than using funds from the sale of the ESB and other State assets towards the State’s international loans.
The troika is aware “in principle” of the Government’s aims for the unit.
A decision on the percentage stake of the ESB to be sold will be made by a review body by the end of November. But NewERA will have a “more involved role in subsequent sales of State assets, if they occur”, a Government source said, and insisted that the responsible Government departments would still have a central role.
NewERA will look at whether Coillte and the State’s remaining share of Aer Lingus will be sold and at the organisation of semi-states in general.
Suggestions that the creation of NewERA will result in employees losing public sector protection of their jobs have been dismissed. A spokesman insisted that the unit was about job creation and growth, not about job losses.
The Government is concerned that “all stakeholders” are on board in the establishment of the unit. Work on NewERA has been ongoing since March, under the responsibility of Minister of State Fergus O’Dowd.
