Pat Gallagher (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)

Some of us are old enough to remember the insurance agents who called bringing only paper files. When insurance agents call to a customer now, they bring a laptop and everything is computerised from the outset. It is somewhat surprising to learn that one company has 500,000 small policies but it does not follow that there is €500 in each of those; some of them could be so low as to not be worth dealing with. I do not know what average we should take.

The difficulty lies with old policies where the details are only available in paper records. While it is a matter for the companies, I hope they will computerise all the policies they hold as this would make it much easier to contact policyholders.

While I do not want to give an assurance, I will speak to the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs about revisiting this mattere in the future. It is a question of striking a balance between the company and the customer. While my verbal assurance will not be written into the Bill, I tell the House in all sincerity that I will speak to the Minister about this. We have established the principle and perhaps should prevail on companies to computerise all their accounts. While the points the Senators have made are very sensible, I would appreciate if we could deal with the matter now and perhaps revisit it in the future.