Frank Fahey (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

The Minister for Finance is convinced, as I am, that the best way to bring the scheme to the attention of the public at large is through the mechanisms provided in the Bill. Again I reiterate the notices will be in the national daily newspapers and they will also be prominently displayed in all public offices of banks, building societies, An Post, life assurance companies, etc.

I accept the Senator's point about the use of electronic communications in the age in which we live, but we must remember we are talking about a slightly different era than our modern communications era. These are policies that have lain unclaimed for at least five years and in most cases substantially longer. These policies would have been taken out some considerable time before that. It would be reasonable to assume the contact details given to the life assurance companies did not include e-mail or website addresses. A vast number of these policies date back to the turn of the century.