asked the Minister for Finance the proportion of total domestic savings, available for investment, which were absorbed by the Government in 1984.

Presumably the Deputy is referring to the data in Table A.10 of National Income and Expenditure. The Central Statistics Office have not, as yet, published preliminary national accounts data for 1984, which would include information on gross savings. The most recent data are in respect of 1982 and I am circulating copies of these. Following is the tabular statement:

SAVINGS AND CAPITAL FORMATION, 1975-82

In this table the total amount available for investment, (i.e. current savings, the provision for depreciation, net foreign capital transfers and net disinvestment) is equated to gross domestic physical capital formation. The figures for capital formation are obtained by adding figures for imported home produced capital goods ready for use to the value of the physical changes in stocks, including the value of the changes in numbers of livestock farms. Since personal savings (item 105) is a residual figure it includes the effect of the changes in livestock and certain other stocks. Personal accordingly includes substantial non-monetary element.

In view of the depression in private investment in the course of 1984 and, for that matter, in 1983, would the Minister agree that the Government have sucked in the vast proportion of domestic savings, perhaps upwards of 70 per cent, thereby giving rise, among other things, to a hike in interest rates in the last 12 months?

No, the Deputy should be perfectly aware that what happened last year with regard to interest rates was that we avoided an increase in those rates from the month of June, when everybody else was experiencing a substantial rise, until the early part of the month of December. That indicated that action on our part kept interest rates down rather than put them up.

Is the Minister disagreeing with every independent economic analysis that the reason for the recent 2 per cent rise in interest rates, which was contrary to the international trend, was that the Government were, very rigidly and in a very shortsighted fashion, determined to raise at least £1,000 million of investment in the private domestic sector? That was the cause of the increase in interest rates here when elsewhere they were going down.

No, I am disagreeing with the advice that the Deputy seems to take.

It is not my advice. It came from and independent source.