EU agenda will not push privatisation, claims Harney

The Government will not be forced into privatising its public services under the new EU Constitution, the Tanaiste, Ms Harney has told the National Forum on Europe.

Ms Harney said it was "absurd to suggest that the EU is, deliberately or unwittingly, set upon the destruction of public social services".

She said: "The EU respects that Member States have their own history and traditions in organising public and social services."

"The attitude of both citizens and Member States, who together constitute the Union, suggest that they wish this to continue.

Nothing in the draft Constitution would prevent that happening," she said.

Ms Harney said: "There is nothing in existing or proposed EU law that would require us to privatise any utility.

She said: "These are matters of our national choice, and will remain so."

Ms Harney said the public are less concerned about the ownership of service providers than quality of services and access to services.

"Many people would say it matters little whether these services are purchased by the State for public use rather than provided and organised by the State," she said.

In any case, she claimed, the EU was neutral on the questions of ownership of public services.

However, the General Secretary of the Irish Congress of Trades' Unions, Mr David Begg, said while the EU does not requires States to privatise public services "its liberal agenda has created the conditions in which this has become inevitable".