Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the delegates for their contributions and, in particular, Mr. Jim Connolly for initiating this process. He has done a great public good in initiating this conversation. Having listened to this and previous discussions at this committee, this is property that cannot simply be left there. We have the choice of leaving it alone, but that would not be appropriate, particularly when we consider that a certain amount of it has been there for 100, 150 or 200 years and that the people who own it are probably long dead. The issue is one for the families. Recently I spoke to somebody involved in the legal sector. Usually when somebody passes away, the solicitor writes to the banks to ask what moneys are in the person's bank accounts. He or she does not ask if the person had ever brought a parcel to the bank. Normally that issue is overlooked and it certainly was overlooked 50 or 100 years ago. Record keeping is much better today.

It is very likely that there is a large number of valuable items. Some safety deposit boxes could contain valuable jewellery, but they could also contain items that were of value to the individual only. It could be a set of love letters from somebody in India that the person had received, bundled up and put into the box. Perhaps they might have been of value to the person only, but they might be of historical interest and value. Mr. Connolly made that point very clearly. The issue concerns private property and the law in that regard. That is where the tangle is. The bank has taken on a responsibility to protect the interests of the individual and hold his or her private property in safe keeping and, as a result, for his or her estate.

Some mechanism must be put in place to move property into a space where it can be dealt with appropriately. While it is sitting in a vault and probably not costing the bank much from that point of view, at the same time it would be in its interests to have it moved off the pitch to somewhere where it could be sorted out properly. The State has an obligation to try to do this and come up with a solution that would work for everyone. The cost involved would probably be considerable. I accept the point that if some goods were damaged in transit, somebody would be able to sue the State, but whatever legislation is put in place would have to be able to deal with that issue. It would have to consider all of these issues and provide that if the State was to take on that role, it could not be sued, as it would be doing it in the public interest and the interests of the estate of the person who had first lodged the items. The issue is how can we legislate in a way that would yield the end result we want, that the items would be taken into safe keeping, opened and examined, a decision would be made on what was to be done with them and a clear effort made to establish the next of kin of the persons who had deposited the items. At that stage, there would be negotiations with them on what should happen to the particular items. For example, they might purely be of personal value such as letters or documents that would be of no value to the State, but if they were of great value, perhaps a historical artefact, a way could be found to put them in the National Museum of Ireland for safe keeping. There is an opportunity to resolve this issue, but we must find a way of doing so that would not expose the State to a huge loss. The people who lodged these items would not have lodged them in the first place if they were not valuable.

The other issue is that of heir hunters. Mr. Connolly referred to the experience in Britain. Are there examples in other jurisdictions? In every country there are safety deposit boxes in which items are lodged. What happens in other jurisdictions? What models are used in other countries in Europe or elsewhere at which we could look as examples of good practice? Some of the envelopes lodged could contain large sums of money, but it is probably long out of date. What will happens to it? How does the system work if they are old guineas dating from 150 years ago? What value would they now have, or is there a way of translating the value for the next of kin?