Mr. Dermot Divilly:

It is huge. If I would say anything, we have probably been slow on that. Some 1.1 million people visit the post office every week, which is a colossal amount of footfall and is vital for us. There is nothing new in all of this and other countries have done the same. New Zealand made this transformation in the 1990s and it is a country much like ours. A book was published, which I gave to the new Minister, which shows the issues are the same; for example, it has a large countryside and few cities. Britain has had to adapt in other ways.

The current account is absolutely central. The Department of Social Protection has written to people telling them it wants them to transfer their money into a bank account, which would be into one of the pillar banks. We must get the current accounts open and we need to get on with that.