One of the country's leading insurers, Axa Ireland, has retained on file numerous reports on claimants which include both garda and socialwelfare information obtained without the consent of the claimants. These reports were compiled for the company by private investigators tasked by Axa to carry out extensive inquiries on the company's behalf.

Most of the reports seen by the Sunday Tribune contain a full social-welfare history of the subject and in some cases the subject's criminal history.

Some of the reports also contain information that could only have been acquired unofficially from the gardai. Some reports compiled for the Motor Insurance Bureau of Ireland also contained this level of information.

Phrases such as "discreet inquiries were initially carried out with the Department of Social Welfare. . ." and "the information received from our confidential source in relation to Mr [X]'s welfare records" are used throughout the reports.

The acquisition and the retention of this information is an offence under the data protection act unless the person's consent has been acquired.

The Sunday Tribune understands that the practice of private investigators acquiring this level of information is widespread throughout the insurance industry.

Private investigators who were contacted in relation to it gave varying reasons why they would have been in a position to acquire the information. All deny acting contrary to the act.

One PI suggested that his company acquires this information by sending one of its personnel to the home of a subject under a false pretext.

The subject then invites him in and ultimately relates his or her full social welfare history to the investigator.

Another PI told the Sunday Tribune, "The company would have given me that on the file."

When asked what exactly that statement meant he hung up and was uncontactable for the rest of the day.

A spokesman for Axa said the company is aware of its obligations under data-protection legislation. He said that Axa employs private investigators in good faith. "In terms of the methodology they employ, that's down to their individual practices, " he said.

"Documents that ordinarily shouldn't be in our files could be there for legitimate reasons. For example, individuals themselves may have given it to us."

However, assistant data commissioner Dairmuid Hallinan said any company would have an obligation to ensure information it received was fairly obtained. Processing such information . . . receiving or retaining it . . . is also an offence under section 2.1 (a) of the data protection act.

Reacting to the latest developments in the industry, Seamus Brennan, the minister for social, community and family affairs, said any breaches of confidentiality in his department would be treated very seriously. He said that he will request a departmental review into stopping leaks be speeded up and anybody found to be involved in such leaks would face the full rigors of the law.

Last Thursday in the Dail, a speech by the minister for justice Michael McDowell (delivered on his behalf by Sean Haughey) alluded to what now appears to be a major problem of garda information being leaked or sold to interested parties.

Referring to the 2004 garda act, he said: "The purpose of the legislation was to deal with a real concern that confidential and personal information about individual investigators was emerging in circumstances which was neither legal nor ethical."

At the time of the act, much of the focus was on the leaking of information to journalists.

However, the emerging picture suggests that the problem of confidential garda information being leaked or sold to insurance industry interests is far greater than anything which ends up in the media.