Thousands of boxes, chests and paintings, many of which could hold valuable papers and treasures dating back 200 years, lie unclaimed in bank vaults in the State, an Oireachtas inquiry will hear today.
Under banking legislation, accounts that have lain idle for 15 years are handed over to the State and used for good causes, but no similar legislation covers items that have been deposited in vaults.
Some of the valuables are stored in safety deposit boxes, but the majority of the untraced items date back before the 1970s when they were stored more loosely in boxes and trunks. In some cases, framed paintings lie in vaults.
“There are potentially thousands of abandoned safety deposit boxes in banks around the country,” said Joe Carey, chairman of the Oireachtas Committee for Rural and Community Development and Fine Gael TD for Clare.
“We need to get background on what happens in other jurisdictions, but our anecdotal evidence is that there could be lots of items of historical and cultural relevance,” he told The Irish Times.
Today’s hearing by the Oireachtas committee, which has oversight of Ireland’s dormant accounts laws, will be the first to see if a way can be found to ensure that boxes are dealt with and papers of historical importance recovered.
Mr Carey said: “In those parcels there could be anything: papers, documents, gold bullion, artworks, antiques, even weapons. These items have accumulated in vaults. The issue of ownership is a complex legal issue.
“We don’t want to breach people’s right to property or to privacy. The new GDPR legislation brings with it a whole range of legal protections.”
Former Bank of Ireland official Jim Connolly, who has had an interest for more than two decades in bank vault treasures, will detail the knowledge he has built up since the early 1990s.
Banks historically agreed to store valued items in their vaults for more than two centuries. However, the ability to prise them open and dispose of their contents is curtailed by a lack of legal clarity. There are no regulations requiring banks to identify or contact beneficial owners.
Such storage has become more formal since the early 1970s when safety-deposit boxes began to be introduced.
Under the Dormant Accounts Act, financial institutions are obliged to identify accounts that have lain idle for 15 years, and the money is transferred to the Dormant Accounts Fund if no claim is made.
Owners of those accounts can still claim the money at any time, but this is not something that is easily achievable with physical property that might be taken from vaults, another complexity which is due to be analysed by the committee.
The Oireachtas committee is expected to hear calls to allow banks to open sealed boxes and trunks, so that they may track down information that could be useful to find the descendants of those who originally made the deposits.
Calling for action, Mr Carey raised questions about what may have happened to items stored in the vaults of bank branches that have been closed in recent decades. “Who knows what happened?” he asked.
