Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have two final brief questions. Reference was made to the dysfunctional nature of and lack of competition in the market. One would imagine that if the banks are all offering the same products and if there is lack of competition, then there is an opening for a bank to come in and undercut them or make profits. However, that has obviously not happened and, as a result, the normal rules or hypotheses are not playing out. Perhaps the witnesses could explain the reason for that.

I am very concerned about and very opposed to the proposal put forward that there would be a review of section 149, which requires authorisation by the Central Bank before banks can increase their fees. I cannot for the life of me understand why an organisation that has consumer protection in its title would try to give banks a free hand to increase their fees because that is undoubtedly what they would do if they did not have to go through a more rigorous process in terms of seeking pre-authorisation from the Central Bank. Could the witnesses explain the reason for that proposal? Bank of Ireland made a profit of €167 million last year. AIB made a profit of nearly €1 billion last year. Those are pre-tax profits but because of the deal Fine Gael and Labour did, the banks are not paying any tax as a result of the fact that they are allowed to carry over losses from previous years. Why is there a desire to loosen their hands in respect of fees? Surely to God if that provision had not been there in the past, we would have seen additional fees for credit cards and transactions? The technology we are using in terms of contactless payments is great but it costs one more money every time one uses the bloody contactless card. People are not aware of that. I am not sure what the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission is doing to highlight the fact that every time one buys something for a euro and one uses one's card, one pays more than a euro because there is a cost for the use of the card. Why is the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission asking that section 149 would be reviewed to allow the banks a free hand in increasing their fees?