You may recall the bank deposit book containing a £2 entry which came to light in Cork after 44 years. Having taken legal advice on the matter, a Bank of Ireland branch in the city decided to pay the amount plus interest.
However, there was no crock of gold at the end of this particular rainbow. Because of customer confidentiality the bank did not divulge the final payout but it is understood it was less than £10. When the Gerry Ryan show picked up the story from Southern Report, several callers said they had old bank books containing various sums. For a few days, the search for old records became a national pastime.
The bank says that as far as it is concerned, a dormant account is one in which there has been no transaction for three years, and adds that sums of less than £10 which have not been claimed are put into a special account where they continue to generate interest for the account holder.
The problem with the Cork account was that the bank did not have a record of the deposit being made. The money was lodged in 1953 when bank transactions were recorded in ledgers. After computerisation in the 1970s, all of these paper records were transferred to disc.
According to the bank's spokesman, a deposit book is merely the customer's record. In the more lenient days of old, he added, people who were well known to the bank but who had forgotten their bank books, could still make a withdrawal. But in the spirit of magnanimity for which all banks are famous, Bank of Ireland honoured the account and brought the saga to a close.