Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their contributions. I did not understand the reference to tax expenditure. What is it? The definition of a dormant account is that there has been no customer-originated activity for 15 years. That means one could have an interest roll-up for 15 years because it would not require the customer to intervene. People hold prize bonds for 20 years and 25 years but they are by no means dormant. Balances on deposit at a credit union or even in an old-style mutual building society for 15 years are far from dormant.

I suspect that perhaps directors might not have large balances at all. People go onto boards of directors of various types for different reasons than for protecting the investment they might have. In fact, often people are tempted onto boards because they are controlling other people's money, OPM, as I call it. That is the biggest temptation of all. That is why things go wrong.