Hi Ciarán
I presume that this was cashed to pay off a loan of yours? (So I have moved the thread to a more appropriate forum). You will have to give a lot more information.
Normally, this would not be possible. For example, if I have an Irish Life product, they could not cash it and pay the proceeds to pay off my Bank of Ireland loan.
If that is what happened, then they should reinstate the policy.
If the plan was with Irish Life and you gave it as security for an AIB loan, then it's probably legitimate. But they would have only done it as a last resort.
But as I say, you will have to give a lot more details.
Brendan