Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

How soon could the pilot project be put in place? The pilot project is the key to this, albeit I disagree with the business case for doing it in the midlands. A very interesting business case would involve doing it in an area like Ballyhaunis were one of the banks closed down. I am not being parochial about it, although I am sure Senator Paddy Burke will agree with me. I am sold on this idea. It really fills the gap.

Decisions are being made in banking now which do not take the local environment and the circumstances of local families into account in using the matrix to assess lending and so on. That has gone away from the main pillar banks. One used to go to one's bank manager who would know how trustworthy one was. He or she would be able to build up a picture and make an assessment. That is gone. Bringing in a bank like this could fill that gap and return trust. What is coming back to us all the time as a committee is the way in which trust is being broken down between the customer and the bank. If one has a model like this to fill the gap, it will benefit not only individuals and SMEs, but society and communities as a whole.

Could the model be tried tomorrow morning in an area where a bank has been closed down if the Department of Finance agreed that it was a good idea and had assessed the risks of a pilot project?