May I say, in reply to the first point, that I appreciate completely the difficulty experienced by the Opposition in relation to the late publication of the Finance Bill this year? As Deputy Cosgrave said, there were many contributing factors, one, of course, being the general election taking place roughly about the time the Budget would have been introduced, followed by the Finance Bill.
Secondly, Deputy Cosgrave was generous enough to refer to the fact that I was new to the Ministry of Finance. I am not going to suggest that that newness was not a contributing factor to some degree to the late publication of the Finance Bill. As the House is aware, I came in almost immediately prior to the Budget and then, having framed the Budget and having put it through the House, I had to tackle the provisions that were put before me for the Finance Bill.
If that had never occurred, I felt that the time had come when some little change in procedure might be contemplated. As the House is aware, there are many matters included in the Finance Bill which are necessarily included but which are not particularly applicable to the Budget. I propose in this year to ensure that matters such as the matters the Revenue Commissioners would like to submit, apart altogether from the budgetary provisions, will come to me at an early stage in the year, so that, having had the opportunity to examine them and get Government decisions on them, where necessary, the actual presentation of the Finance Bill after the Budget has been put through will be expedited.
I do not know if the Taoiseach announced the other evening that I also contemplated suggesting a change in finance business generally as presented to and debated in the House. There is a great deal of overlapping and there are debates, for example, the debate on the Vote on Account, which take place at a time when the type of information that it would be essential for Deputies to have is not at that stage available. I propose to suggest that there would be a certain rationalisation of the finance and economic debates in coming years and I propose to suggest legislation accordingly.
However, I hope that the combination of circumstances that happened this year will not occur again but that, even if it does, other administrative, if not very revolutionary, changes I will propose will expedite the issuing of the Finance Bill.
With regard to the other problem Deputy Cosgrave has raised, the shortfall in bank deposits here, in availability of capital, has been caused more by a drop in the money coming in rather than an increase in the money going out. It cannot be denied that there is some increase in the outgoings by reason of the very favourable rates of interest being offered in Britain. Anybody who takes up the British Sunday papers or in some cases, our own Sunday papers, when they are available, will see the extent to which some borrowing corporations, in many cases municipalities and other local authorities in Britain, offer very attractive rates. So I cannot deny that it is probable that some of the drop in available money could be attributed to that factor.
Deputy Cosgrave did ask me a question some time ago as to the effect the foreign finance houses operating in this country had and I am afraid I was not able to give any precise information about that, nor am I able to do so at this stage. With regard to whether the obligation imposed on banks under the 1963 Finance Act to make returns of moneys on deposit earning a rate of interest of £15 and upwards caused a drop in deposits, I made inquiries about this long before I became Minister for Finance and I was told at that time, and subsequently on making inquiries as Minister for Finance, that that was not a significant factor in the drop in deposits.
I might say in passing in that respect that it is very easy for people to hide away money in this country. They do not have to stash it away abroad. There are many outlets for that purpose. Naturally enough, it is only when people want to use money that their having it is disclosed. In any event, in the recent Finance Bill, I raised the amount from £15 to £50 interest on deposits which would be required to be disclosed in future and to the extent that the disclosure of these deposits to the Revenue Commissioners has caused a drop in the amount of deposits, that will be cured.
As Deputy Cosgrave intimated, it is not easy to control the flow of money because that is an exercise which would not be peculiar to us. There is a free flow of money between this country and Britain and we work out considerably on the credit side in that two-way flow. However, I mentioned in reply to Deputy Cosgrave's Parliamentary question that I proposed to introduce new legislation to see what could be done especially from the Central Bank's point of view and generally speaking, on the point raised by Deputy Cosgrave, I hope the situation will show an improvement as a result of the action I propose to take.