Mr. Pat Leahy:

In relation to the question on the euro, the answer is "Yes". The Central Bank of Ireland still accepts old Irish coins and notes at the conversion rate of when they converted over to euro. You have to go to the bank with those notes, but it is worth making the point that there may well be some of those that may have a higher face value than the actual value. One of the points we try to make is that you would therefore want to be careful. If you were to convert some money over, you could end up with a higher face value and a loss of money for the individuals involved. That is one of the points where you need to be careful.

I do not deal with the area of moneylaundering, but what I understand is included in the register is that all bank and payment accounts are identified by IBAN and safe deposit boxes are held by the registered credit institution. It does not include information on bank balances. The purpose of this register is to make this information available to the financial intelligence unit, FIU, which is the investigations unit within An Garda Síochána. This is effectively to track information. Yet, if there were a specific question the Deputy wanted to ask on this issue, maybe he could give it to the clerk and we could come back to him on it. I do not want to give him information because, as I said, I do not deal with money laundering myself. It is not one of my areas.