Mr. Denis O'Callaghan:

Members of the committee asked how the bank's relationship with An Post and the post office network might evolve into the future. The first thing to say is that AIB has been in partnership with An Post for 13 years. I would say it is a long, strong and productive partnership, certainly from our point of view. As we regularly survey our customers to learn more about the experience they have with the 1,100 branches in the An Post network, we know that they enjoy really good experiences. I want to thank An Post and the Irish Postmasters Union for that because it is very important for our customers to get a happy service that they value.

As we said earlier, we know that 15,000 of our customers visit post offices across the island of Ireland every day. We estimate that they will undertake 4 million transactions this year, which is very significant. All AIB personal and business customers in every community can visit any one of the 1,100 post offices to lodge or withdraw cash or use their cards. It is quite an extensive service. We are in regular dialogue with An Post. I think we have a good relationship. We are very happy to continue discussions with An Post about how we can further enhance that service in the period ahead.

Members of the committee have expressed concern that banks are reducing the services they offer in their branches. There was a suggestion that different branches offer different types of services. I assure the committee that all of AIB's branches open at least five days a week, from Monday to Friday. Indeed, some of them open seven days a week. All of our branches, including small rural branches and urban branches, offer the full range of service in areas like personal lending, SME lending, deposits, investments and foreign exchange. I know the question of when customers can avail of over-the-counter services is a sensitive one. While we have self-service facilities in all our branches, every customer in every branch has the option of having a face-to-face interaction with an AIB person in respect of any transaction. I refer, for example, to over-the-counter transactions involving cash, cheques, coins or foreign exchange. We are very committed to that. We are saying, in a nutshell, that the full range of AIB services is available to our customers in every one of our 205 branches.