Mr. Pat Farrell:

On broadband, none of the changes and facilities that have been introduced in our branches are dependent on broadband. One interacts with the lodgment and cash machine in branches so there is no dependency as such on broadband. We support the roll-out of broadband and we are in favour of equality of access to broadband right across the country. In fact, we have been involved in initiatives to roll out and promote broadband.

I am from the west of Ireland - in fact, all of us here are from rural Ireland. The Bank of Ireland has 64 branches across the province of Connacht. Our nearest competitor has 40. The Senator comes from Mayo. We have ten branches there while our nearest competitor has seven. We have a substantially larger footprint than our nearest competitors in all of the counties. We have a huge commitment. As my colleague indicated earlier, Bank of Ireland has invested €10 million this year in upgrading facilities. We also have a huge investment in the enterprise town concept, the primary focus of which is on rural Ireland. We have run a number of these across all of the counties this year. We are committed to that and to doing even more of them next year.