Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Senator Rose Conway-Walsh referred earlier to the bank's network of 110 branches. Representatives from other banks have been before this committee and have spoken about technology and so forth. Are the witnesses in a position to say that the branch network is unlikely to go below 80 or 60 or 40? Are there ten or 40 branches being examined with a view to turning them into cashless or machine-only branches? How many branches are not viable in the longer term? Many of us have applications on our phones and we do business in different ways now. There is an element of rural proofing in terms of access to broadband, but it is not that long ago that Ulster Bank had very significant IT issues. Will the witnesses elaborate on the bank's branch network and its IT system's robustness? I know of people whose experience was that payments were not going out or coming into their accounts when they should have been. In some instances, people did not receive their salaries. Will the witnesses expand on that?