Derek McDowell (Labour)

My real difficulty is that the Minister of State spoke of the comprehensive provision for notifying people of the existence of a policy. However, it is not comprehensive; it is specifically on a once and once only basis after five or 15 years. It is not a huge administrative burden to place on insurance companies to require them to write or, in deference to Senator Quinn, communicate once a year after the maturity of a policy to say it has matured and asking if the holder or family member would like to claim it. This is particularly so in the many cases where the policy holder is deceased.

Perhaps the passage of the legislation in 2001 might have jogged people's memories about accounts they held but about which they had forgotten. However, we cannot jog the memories of deceased policyholders and, therefore, we need a more formal and regular notification mechanism than is provided for in the Bill.

I assume this came out of negotiations with the industry. The Minister surrendered too much if he accepted that one notification was sufficient. I urge the Minister of State, between now and Report Stage tomorrow, to consider placing a greater burden on companies to communicate with policyholders.