David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)

I pay compliment to Deputy McGuinness because, as always, he speaks considerable sense and I agree with much of what he said.

Colleagues have reflected on something that happened earlier today when Taoiseach made an announcement in the House about the referendum. It is important that more such announcements are made here in the Chamber so that Deputies here get an opportunity to be the first people to debate and discuss such very important issues. Over the years we have seen ever more power, authority and responsibility being devolved from this Chamber and from Deputies elected by the people to unelected boards which in many cases are unaccountable or hard to get to account to the House and to the democratic process. I am not saying that is the case with this particular board, which has done considerable good work. One of the reasons for dissolving this board is that the fund has reduced. When the dormant accounts fund was initially established, I felt it would be time limited because the money would run out after a while, which is what is happening now.

However, we need to consider other issues. The dormant accounts legislation enabled taking money from accounts that were unused for a number of years and put it at the disposal of the State. As colleagues have said, considerable good has come from this and many communities have benefited, continue to benefit and will benefit into the future. However, we must not forget that this money is not owned by the State. The money legally belongs to account holders, who have the right to claim back the money in time. I am not sure whether they can claim a refund on any interest that might have accrued. Perhaps when the Minister is summing up he might clarify that point.

In other jurisdictions great effort is put into trying to reunite owners of property with unclaimed property. In the United States, for instance, every state has an unclaimed property agency. Obviously, the United States is much bigger than Ireland and has considerably more wealth. It makes considerable efforts to reunite unclaimed property with the rightful owners. The financial institutions here have that responsibility. Once that money transfers to the State here, how much effort is put into informing people that they might have money, property or wealth that is legally theirs and that they are entitled to claim it?

Deputy McGuinness alluded to the need to fight poverty. I would go further than that and, as Chairman of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Women's Rights, one of the issues about which I am concerned is the need to fight crime and more importantly to fight the causes of crime. That is one thing the dormant accounts fund can do and does.

I bring to the attention of the House another method that might not be as fruitful now as it might have been a number of years ago when I first raised it. This is the issue of escheatment, which relates to a state taking unclaimed dividends. A person who receives a dividend cheque of €2 or €3 will often not bother cashing it. Those moneys can lie in the accounts of corporations, banks and so on and eventually be claimed back into the bank or corporation. In other countries the principle of escheatment is quite advanced and it could be considered here also. Now that we are discussing dormant accounts we may need to consider broadening the ways of claiming properties that are lying idle. I mentioned dividends, but other unclaimed funds exist. This is a well-known procedure in the United States and to a lesser extent in other countries such as Australia, India and so on. It is taken seriously in America and the US Securities and Exchange Commission has issued guidelines to US quoted companies on it. It appears that all states have established escheatment laws based on underlying federal statutes. Individual states are entitled to control the escheated assets belonging to residents or former residents of a particular state. There is also a strict fines system where companies fail to comply with their filing obligations. The definition of escheatable property is wide and not limited to quoted companies, but it includes any category of asset where the beneficial owner has either not received the funds or not claimed them. That issue could be examined in the broader scheme of things.

I know that the Minister is interested in philanthropy. Although philanthropy in Ireland has grown rapidly in the past decade, it is still in its infancy and it will face severe headwinds in the coming years with the situation in the economy. As in all countries, the non-profit sector is large and growing. One count estimates that there are 24,000 voluntary organisations in Ireland, of which more than 7,500 are registered charities. We must examine the charities sector as well. I am keen to see a regulator appointed to the charities sector, which employs 63,000 people. Obviously, the sector here is a good deal smaller than other countries such as the United States where there are more than 1 million public charities and where three out of four people donate. I know the Minister is interested in encouraging philanthropy to bring out the best in people. Deputy McGuinness referred to this earlier. We must build capacity and increase the level of skills of those working in the sector.

I welcome the Bill. We must begin to scrutinise other boards to establish whether we can downsize or amalgamate them. Many boards are rather large and have many members. I question why some of them are so large. Now is possibly the time to amalgamate some of these boards, downsize them and give them more than one function if we decide to retain them. It is important that responsibility and accountability is devolved to the House and, in particular, to the committees of the House because this is where real accountability lies.

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