Hi Ian,
yeah, still have the orange Westy, it's just L20B Brilliant Orange. Maybe you're thinking of the orange 1300S Beetle I also have? Even though it's as orange as you can get, it's L30M and called "Tomato Red" by VW.
To answer your question, First Ireland require you to have a "daily driver" already insured to avail of their classic car insurance policy. I'm not sure there's any way around it really. You could try calling around and see if any of the other classic car insurers don't have that requirement on their policies. Look up Campion Insurance brokers in Portlaoise, AXA do a classic policy, Carole Nash, Autoline in the North insure cars south of the border.
Hopefully you get sorted without too much hassle.