Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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403. To ask the Minister for Finance the legislation or regulations that govern the provision of safe deposit boxes and their contents in financial institutions; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11373/25]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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Part 4 of the Criminal Justice Act 2010 (the “Act”) provides for various anti-money laundering obligations that must be complied with by a ‘designated person’. A ‘designated person’ is defined in section 25 of the Act and this includes a financial institution and credit institution as defined in the Act. Therefore, these institutions must comply with anti-money laundering obligations when dealing with consumers who open and use safe deposit boxes. For example, section 30B provides that a designated person conduct ongoing monitoring in relation to the customer or transactions based on the customer's risk profile.

Separate but related to the above domestic requirements, the European Union (Anti-Money Laundering: Central Mechanism for Information on Safe-Deposit Boxes and Bank and Payment Accounts) Regulations 2022 (the “Regulations”) designate the Central Bank of Ireland (the "Central Bank”“) as the body tasked with establishing and maintaining a central register of information on safe-deposit boxes and bank and payment accounts, as required under Article 32a of the Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive, as amended by the Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive. However, it must be emphasised that this central register records the names and addresses of the persons who hold the boxes. The purpose of this is to aid law enforcement agencies and does not govern the contents of safe deposit accounts.

Furthermore, the Regulations apply to credit institutions which are established in the State. These require the Central Bank to establish and maintain a database (referred to as the "Central Database") on which information in relation to bank accounts, payment accounts and safe-deposit boxes are entered, together with a Central Mechanism of Ownership of Bank and Payment Accounts and Safe-Deposit Boxes which enables FIU Ireland (Ireland's financial intelligence unit) to search across that information.

Under these Regulations, the Central Bank may ask credit institutions to provide it with certain prescribed information to include the following:

(i) for bank and payment accounts: the name and address (and, in the case of individuals, date of birth) of the customer-account holder and of its beneficial owners, together with the IBAN, account name, account-opening date and (if applicable) account-closing date; and

(ii) for safe-deposit boxes: the name and address (and, in the case of an individual, date of birth) of the lessee.

That information will be retained by the Central Bank for at least 5 years after the account is closed, or at least 5 years after the lease on the safe-deposit box expires.

Non-Bank entities or institutions falling outside the meaning of a ‘credit institution’ are not captured by the Regulations.