Michael McNamara (Clare, Labour) | Oireachtas source

This practice presupposes that, when one telephones a branch, one cannot get through to someone, whereas one can when one telephones a call centre. My experience has been the exact opposite. Whenever I telephoned a branch, someone picked up and helped with my query. As recently as yesterday, I spent 20 minutes on hold trying to get through to one of the bank's call centres. Is this acceptable? If Bank of Ireland hopes to grow its business through increasing its customer base and the services provided to same, will it achieve this aim by call centres putting customers on hold for 20 minutes? They cannot contact their branches.