Regina Doherty (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I want to speak today about cash. In recent weeks we have seen major inroads in announcements of policies by the European Commission and the European Parliament to introduce a digital euro and immediate transfer payments to try to commercialise and digitalise how people interact and do their business in society.While that is all very welcome and most of us have probably easily transitioned to the likes of Revolut and online banking in recent years, a tremendous number of people in our population still go to the bank or the hole-in-the-wall every week to take out their budget of money and spend it. I met a lady in Rush last Sunday when I was canvassing who does not even have a bank account. When Ulster Bank closed last year, she was refused a bank account by all of the other banks in Ireland because she does not have a passport to prove who she is, and despite having other forms such as a digital public services card and a driving licence, she was still refused. A huge number of people are still using cash, in the main, mature citizens. The lady in question has to take her pension out of the post office in cash every week and she puts it under her stairs. It is just not tolerable.

I want us to address this issue. We have a situation in Ireland where cash is legal tender yet it can still be refused by services and shops by putting a sign in the window to say the contract of engagement is such that only cashless payments are accepted. That is not good enough. It should be enshrined in legislation that people who continue to wish to use cash, because they have been using it for donkey's years, should be allowed to continue to do so, as a natural form of transaction until it naturally runs out, which I am sure it will at some point in the future. I ask the Leader to raise with our ministerial colleagues the need for primary legislation to ensure that those people in Ireland who want to use cash as a means of buying their public services, doing their shopping or paying their bills - whatever it is they do on a daily basis - can continue to do so by law. We must allow them to continue in the way they have done for years, and services and companies should not be able to refuse them.

The most public case we had last year was the NCT refusing to take payment by cash. That was overturned but only after a public outcry. We need primary legislation to ensure people's right to engage in services, transactions and actions by the use of cash, if that is what they wish. I ask the Leader to raise this with the Minister involved.