Mr. Jim Connolly:

There are countless ways to approach the matter. We could probably draw on some of the United Kingdom's experience on this front. It has built an entire private sector industry around heir hunters. When estates have nominated beneficiaries but nobody can find them, there are private sector firms that locate them. The companies involved cover the cost of the search and then charge individual beneficiaries for locating them. Therefore, there are ways to avoid either the State or the banks paying, if there is an appetite to curtail costs, but this issue is bigger than cost. It goes to the root of fairness. There are no statistics available, but I would put the figure at tens of thousands of Irish citizens who could benefit from a windfall of property that they simply do not know is there.

They might not be wealthy individuals. They might be individuals who are in desperate need of money. The cost issue probably deflects from the core issue of fairness in terms of what I am hoping to convince the committee to adopt.