Mr. Eoin Dorgan:

Certainly. It is difficult to give a definitive view because currently there is no specific Government policy on the issue. Mr. Connolly's suggestion of a 100-year rule is quite sensible, given that a safety deposit box item could be put away for a considerable length of time. It is not like a dormant account. It might assist the committee to know that yesterday I spoke to an official who had worked on the Dormant Account Act in 2003. She informed me that at the time they had looked at the issue of safety deposit boxes and that it became such a legal and constitutional quagmire that they decided to omit it and progress the core legislation.

There is an important aspect to the cost issue - whether the cost would fall on the State or the banking sector. Even if it was to fall on the banking sector, the reality is that ordinary consumers would pay, be it through the basis points charged on their mortgage or in another way. They would pay for the cataloguing of assets and wealth. It is they who would pay the cost, as opposed to the private citizen who had come into wealth and used the safety deposit box. From a public interest perspective, the real challenge is presented by Article 43 of the Constitution which provides for the protection of private property, which is allowed to be delimited for reasons to do with the common good. That is why we believe the common good logic would most likely apply to artefacts of historical and national importance. It would be very difficult to make the common good argument to do it in the interests of individual citizens who already have vast wealth and need to use safety deposit boxes. We highlight the cost to the Exchequer, but if there was to be a cost on the banking system, it would fall on ordinary consumers, as opposed to those who had wealth and assets. I hope this is of assistance to the committee.