A small number of the missing files on exchange controls in the Department of Finance have been located, the Dail was told last night. The Minister of State for Finance, Mr Martin Cullen, said 139 files had not been located and in the case of a further 12 registered files, 14 volumes had not been found.

The majority of these files were originally registered before 1970, and of those most were originally registered before 1960, he said. Of the 139 files, 111 were originally registered between 1954 and 1959, 13 between 1960 and 1964, and four between 1965 and 1970, he added.

The possibility that some files might have been amalgamated over the years, without this being recorded in the file register, was still being investigated.

Mr Cullen said the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, had told him that, subject to legal advice and to the agreement of the Moriarty Tribunal, which requested the files, he had no objection in principle to a list of those files which could not be located being made available to the House. The Minister intended, he added, to send the tribunal a list of all the files covered by the its production order, including a list of those which could not be located.

"The efforts by Minister McCreevy and by the Department of Finance were directed at facilitating the work of, and giving every assistance to, the tribunal," he added.

Mr Cullen was replying, on the adjournment, to the Fine Gael spokesman on finance, Mr Michael Noonan, who recalled that an article in the Sunday Tribune last March had pointed out that when sterling was devalued in November 1967, Mr Charles Haughey, as Minister for Finance, was informed in advance by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Jim Callaghan.

The article had linked the order of discovery from the tribunal with its intention to investigate whether Mr Haughey or any of his friends could have benefited from the advance knowledge by buying foreign currency before the devaluation and selling it afterwards at a profit of about 14 per cent.

"Any person buying foreign currency in 1967 needed to lodge an application under the existing exchange controls. Copies of the application would be on file in either the Central Bank or the Department of Finance," said Mr Noonan.