Mr. Dermot Divilly:

The main problem is that people probably do not want to pay the charges for opening an account. It is a question of who is going to pay for that. Although I am not involved in the detail, there are discussions with the Department of Social Protection to get some kind of a satisfactory solution. That is probably the main issue, but it is well under way. A trial of this will run in quarter 4, which is October, November and December. It will be a simple account in the beginning. The account holder will have a debit card on which he or she can withdraw money anywhere in the world and make debit transfers. This is the majority of banking done by most people. We are not trying to be complicated. Hopefully, in the future, we will be able to give loans and so on. This is critical, in my view, because it is transactional, and that is what we are good at. We are not high street traders. We are good at this and there is trust there.

I have not spoken much about the brand, and perhaps I should have. It struck me how respected the brand is and how liked it is. The people have a good feeling about it. For example, I feel we can do a lot more on insurance, and I have a background in that. I believe people would buy insurance from An Post. Perhaps we would have to sell it a different way, but there is no question that people would feel An Post will continue in business, whereas there has been some fallout in other areas.

There are a lot of opportunities. It is a three-pronged approach entailing cost, driving new business and making sure the mail business is tight and efficient.