Ryanair had previously bid €2.80 a share, those same shares are now€0.95 each, they had their chance to sell aer lingus at a good price… No one will bid that sort of money for AL now

There is no major hurry to sell, so why not hold out for a while longer and see what happens with tourism numbers coming into Ireland, and perhaps AL’s position may improve.

@Conor. Of course there’s a huge hurry to sell. There are a pile of bondholders who’s bonds have been paid back out there. Poor folk sitting on oodles of cash in banks earning very low interest rates. They need something that they can invest in that will earn them a decent return. Get with the program…….

conor do you work for the goverment

This is part of the scam. Greece will be doing the same. Except Ireland has a huge amount a natural resources that are untapped, along with decent profitable businesses. These forigners know this and so do our puppets in suits.

What resources do we have untapped? Surely its better for the private sector to manage them than our own government.

Damn forigners, always after our bogs!

2010 Fine Gael report: While semi-state sector contributed €84 million in dividends to the state, they recieved subsidies from the state of €484 million. Net loss to the state/taxpayer €400 million.
The idea that the semi-state sector is a valuable wealth generating asset is a fallacy.
High energy costs, due to the uncompetitive energy sector is further damaging potential growth.
TV license fee is a tax in all but name and has a distorting effect on media industry in Ireland.
http://www.finegael.org/upload/Semi-StateSurvey07_10%5B1%5D.doc

Robert, we have loads and loads of natural resources, the vast vast majority is on Coillte land,

the problem is is if we sell of Coillte and its lands you can say bye bye to our woodlands (or whats left of them), you’ll see mountainsides and hillsides turning into private property and being mined. In short it will be a disaster for our public open spaces and the environment in Ireland

@Barry
Have you seen the proposal to sell off all Coilltes land?

@Sean
If these companies were managed properly they would make a profit. Private companies wouldn’t be buying them if they couldn’t make a profit from them.

Barry what can the government do when just holding onto these resources? Everyone seems to conclude they’re clueless. As long as the assets are sold off and relevant industries privatized the best use of resources will follow. If you like myself are worried about the environmental damage this could cause then I’ll direct you to Walter Block who does a good piece on this youtube.com/watch?v=bbZJ2OEi8YM

@TheVoiceOfReason
Well that’s the bloody point. Government can’t manage a business. Them getting out of the way to let the private sector take over is a much better idea. As long as they completely get out of the way…

@Robert
My solution would be to get the current government out of the way because they can’t even manage their own finances (well they’re very good with their own personal one). There are plenty of intelligent and capable Irish business people who could turn these companies around.

Institutions that are not required to remain commercially viable for their continued existence are almost certain to remain loss making.
The profitable semi-states remain so by passing on low productivity costs to consumers. Hence, Ireland has amongst the highest energy costs in Europe.
The state funded itself with a philosophy that taxpayers and the markets could be tapped indefinitely and infinitely. This fallacy has now been exposed with respect to the markets.

and what will happen when we look for a second bailout,,, in 30 yrs time we wont own anything in this country,, it important to keep our stuff for ourselves,,,, our gas, oil,, and all the other infrastructure will be sold on the cheap,, and to whom,,, the bloody banks and bondholders we are bailing out,, this is bad for our country

Owing to our politicians lack of financial prudence we’ll probably buy back ESB in 10 years for 700 trillion.

What got Ireland back on track in the 80s was a series of harsh cuts in spending by FF, supported by FG with the Tallaght strategy, to ease the budget deficit.

Is that really what you want? Because as we know, we now have an even more massive budget deficit with the borrowing from the troika covering one third of PS pay and SW.

@Neil,

No that is not what I want, neither is a rise in tax, endless fees and levy’s , 10,000 people leaving Ireland each month, hospitals closing, schools going with min funding, college students getting hit with fees, grants dropping, assists been sold, corib gas almost been given way…..

The borrowing from the troika is only getting us deeper, Greece has borrowed so much it will take another 25 years for it to get back to ‘normal’.

The new proposed ESM is another way to ensure we will remain in debt, but it also ensures Germany have a tighter stranglehold on us…….. Which is even worse ;o(((

@SirRichie Van Piimpp
I´m no fan of borrowing and debt either, but if we were to cut off all borrowing tomorrow then we´ll have a lot of the negatives you list happening in an even more severe way. When a third of government spending is funded by borrowing then that’s a massive adjustment to make overnight.

I agree with you on the borrowing, alas it is really all we can do right now…
But selling Coillte is not an answer either, Nor is giving away the Corrib gas

The people who got us into this mess should be held accountable for it. It is a sin there has been no1 convicted for the nonsense borrowing that went on for years…

Imagine you or I went to a bank and borrowed €1,000 – refusing to pay it back… We would see jail time or we would be ordered to pay it.. People who borrowed millions are getting away Scott free….

So rather than squeeze us until we have to rebel (look at Greece) why not go after the ones who caused it, get them to fix it – so we do not have to sell our souls

@SirRichie Van Piimpp

Frankly, the only solution that people seem to propose which avoids borrowing, and avoid austerity at the same time, involves the use of a time machine to do things differently in the Aherne years.

But there is no time machine. There´s just crappy ways forward, and even crappier ways forward. A unilateral default will be extremely painful. A case has got to be made that is honest about that, while explaining why it would be worth it in the long term.

then we shall build a time machine…. ;o)
Good day to you Sir ;o)

We´re paying the highest electricity prices in Europe and we´re supposed to be proud that the ESB make big profits?

Well said Neil, the fact is that everything that the government has even a part hand in has gone up in price when the rest of the economy has been in a deflationary cycle due to a prolonged recession. On this basis alone one could conclude that government involvement shoud be limited to all but the most strategic of interest such as the such as the energy grid itself .

It is possible to sell Coillte without selling the land the forests are located on.
Lease??

I believe selling the trees but not the land is an option.

they can sell the crops but not the land as it belongs to the people. the exchequrs of coille gets between 250 to 300 thousand a year.my husband worked in the foresty for years but not for collite.this last few years they would not sell timber to him. the good timber was send away and the rest was just left there to rot rather than to sell it to professional lumber jackers’.

Bertie Ahern is involved in the sale of Coillte assets, so rest assured he will look after the interests of the public, the next time you go rambling don’t be surprised if your stopped by a 6ft fence.

Bertie is involved in the sale of Coillte assets?

Please explain that one.

http://www.ifsam.ie/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=56&Itemid=71

Bertie Aherns involvement with a company that buys state forests and woodlands, no doubt Bertie will shy away from getting involved, it’s not like he’d sell his own mother for some hard cash is it?

@Donal Bertie Ahern is Chairman of the International Forestry Fund. Which is a joint venture of the I.F.S. Asset Managers Ltd and Helvetia Wealth AG of Switzerland.

Interesting the IFF usually only invest if they can purchase both the land and the trees……

Thanks Dermot & Kerry.

Our solar energy?

Wind and wave energy. Japanese announced major advancement in wind energy recently and hope to replace their nuclear plants with it.

@Derek
Yeah, the Brits don´t have any waves. They can´t wait to steal them from us. Waves and wind, uniquely Irish.

@Neil Don’t shoot the messenger. Yeah Scotland has the potential but who knows where they will stand in relation to England in 5 to 10 years.

Derek, most of the ‘alternative’ energy generated in Ireland is already being generated by private companies.

Sorry Derek, I´m not dissing renewable energy, far from it. Up far too early and far too snarky. But I don´t see anything in what has been proposed so far that sells off access to our wind and our waves. But yes, it´s a fair point about the Scots.

What assets? Even if they had assets, is there a buyer for them considering most of their assets would be over valued in the boom land?

Agreed the Eircom sale was a cock up, but, the only reason why most folks think this is due to the fact that the company wasn’t split into two entities like the ESB before it was sold. They should have split it into Eircom Network (should have been kept state) and the rest to be sold to anyone who would have it.
Once ESB Networks stays state I couldn’t care about ESB Generation, its just another provider of power

Jackboots on O´Connell street?

Jackboots? No. It’s a classic business move. Take over the company (Ireland Inc) review what assets it has. Break it up and sell the valuable assets and then dump the rest.

That’s a bit extreme. The real gold, the networks, are being retained.

Exactly

Here here…but I couldn’t see them being able to ensure just an Irish group would buy the assets

well said Martin. and see the money this country would save from all these over paid exchequers

it is and was greedy business people and developers that got the country into the mess its in and not the hard working people of Ireland. and without the support of the unions , workers would be working in sweat shops and conditions akin to third world countries .Is that the type of country the greedy people want not me

Totally the opposite John, I’d be looking for people who would work for a reasonable wage but do it more for the pride of turning these state owned companies into ones that the Irish people can be proud of, that would offer a reliable service with world class workers and customer care and I don’t see any reason why we couldn’t do that if we got Enda and co and their selfish mindset out forever

The unions got their benchmarking in the public sector, and in the semi-states they got the best pay rates in Europe.
So the unions are very much a factor in where we are now, with a 10bn primary budget deficit, and some of the highest energy prices in the world, without the money to support it all. Can´t blame them too much. Bertie was throwing money at them with all the taxes flowing in from the property boom.

I believe Denmark have higher rates in Europe

Really?
Oh I retract my comment so or maybe amend it to say we have the highest pre-tax tariff and highest for business.

:)

Clearly, they do.