Derek McDowell (Labour)

I accept that, in practical terms, this would take a little time to put in place but I believe the officials are over emphasising the issue of legal and constitutional difficulties. I do not see a need for substantial change in the way one currently claims under a policy – I assume that is by filling in a form and providing certain information, including a policy number. Obviously, a claimant should be required to provide certain basic information and, based on that, the central database would be used to establish whether there was a policy to which he or she might be entitled. What would take time, obviously, is putting the database together.

Subject to correction by the Minister of State, I understand there is no requirement under the Bill for insurance companies to give the NTMA details of the individual policyholders or the people they think might be entitled to the money. They are simply required to give the totals to the NTMA, retaining the details on the register within the insurance companies.

I suggest the way to start is that, when money is handed over to the fund, the NTMA should also be given details of the policy owners so that, over time, it would build up a database of, at least, the owners of the policies from which funds have been transferred to the agency. Over time – perhaps a relatively short time – one could build up the database and the necessary information to respond to queries.

I believe legal and constitutional difficulties would arise only if people had access to information concerning other people's policies. As matters now stand, if one contacts an insurance company one does not have access to the total number of policyholders they might have; one will only be told whether one has an interest in a policy. I do not see that that would necessarily have to change. I accept there would be a problem in giving access to a register but all we require is that one agency has enough information available to it to respond to queries from members of the public.