Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am not surprised by that. I have figures in excess of €2 billion, with a number of agencies with large budgets still missing. At a practical level, local authorities have overdraft facilities and I know the overdraft facility in my county is very large. People are paying a lot of money to avail of the facility and, at the same time, they may have extremely large deposits.

We also have town councils, which will be abolished for better or for worse under Government reform plans next June, with €17 million on deposit. They have consistently had millions on deposit over the past number of years. If the money is not spent by the town councils, where will it go? This is a broader question but we have very little data. The first thing I would like to do is get the data. I have spoken to a number of State agencies and there are many good reasons why they have money on deposit. I raise this not to be critical of them for holding deposits but to be critical of the lack of national co-ordination. A proactive State agency could seek very good interest rates while another is leaving the money in the bank for years. That is happening also.