Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour) | Oireachtas source

There are eight witnesses here today and I am glad to see there is perfect gender balance with four women and four men. I think the women will be a bit softer and easier to deal with in terms of trying to get loans for farmers and small businesses. We have been deeply concerned for the past month or six weeks in terms of the impact the fodder crisis was having on farmers. A lot of other things are happening as well. We know the milk situation is getting to a point where there may well be voluntary cessation schemes. We have reached our level of production well in advance of what was anticipated in terms of Harvest 2025 and so on. I hope the witnesses are evaluating all those things and the various market situations that are likely to arise for the different farm sectors and products. I hope they are devising financial packages that can help people. A lot of investment has gone into dairying, particularly in the last three or four years. I anticipate that the witnesses are watching that with an eagle eye.

It is no use engaging in the usual claptrap of everybody getting excited when the game is over and the teams have left the field and are in the dressing room. We want to be getting excited when the referee is going onto the pitch. I am referring in metaphorical terms to the marking that is in place. I know the SBCI is bringing in the €300 million Brexit loan scheme for small businesses. The agriculture cashflow support scheme was very successful last year in January and May. The SBCI has the ear of the Minister continuously and is always talking to him. In response to various questions that we raise here, he indicates that he is in constant contact with it. Was there a request to bring forward a cashflow loan scheme this year between January and May? That would have been very interesting in the light of the significant obstacles facing farmers, particularly over the last weeks.

I am not surprised at what the witnesses are talking about. The financial institutions are skinning everyone for the cost of money. They are legalised robbers. Let us be clear about a few things. The cost of overdraft money means not one farmer wants to increase or get an extra few bob through overdraft. The witnesses are all very educated. AIB told us in its written presentation that it has 16 agricultural science graduates although that figure has gone down to 12 in today's meeting. There are graduates coming out of UCD and elsewhere in agricultural science and they are very sharp boys and ladies. They will tell the witnesses that it is the cost of money. No one wants to get an overdraft because the banks are charging too much.

I am not surprised, notwithstanding that farmers are on their knees. All the witnesses have said it. The common thread throughout the presentations has been that no one has looked for an extra penny. I am not surprised. The witnesses should ask themselves why that is the case.

I am glad to see Ulster Bank representatives before the committee and I compliment them. The bank had representatives from Aware, Pieta House and Mental Health Ireland at various events in recognition of the need for mental well-being. I congratulate the bank on that, but there has been extraordinary strain and anxiety for a large cohort of farmers. It has been scattered and localised in various areas. The recent bad weather heralded the feed difficulty, the fodder crisis and various animal welfare issues. Human health and mental welfare issues arise as well for individual farmers. As the witnesses know, farmers are attached to animals to the point where they know them by name and so on. I would hope that what Ulster Bank has done is being seen by others as worthwhile and something that should be taken up. I compliment Ulster Bank in that regard.

I cannot but go back to Bank of Ireland because I know something about the organisation. In theory, the bank operates in all major centres throughout the country. The only things the bank has operating are the buildings. It has eliminated almost every human face out of the buildings. The bank has come up with a great idea. It probably presented it as digital support with potential for 120,000 online applications. Despite this, the only thing that counts is the relationship between the banker and the borrower. In this case, we are discussing the farmer but the same applies to any small business. The bank has virtually removed people from rural Ireland. Perhaps it is still packing people into the four or five cities but it has certainly removed staff from rural Ireland. The bank has undertaken wholesale withdrawal. God help the poor bank employees left behind – I salute them. They are working the skin off their bones to keep going.

The bank representatives need not tell me this is not happening. The Bank of Ireland chief executive was lauding the development as another cost-cutting measure only a couple of weeks ago at the annual general meeting. Cost-cutting comes at a price and the price is the reduction of the individual reaction, contact and relationship. I know it myself because I am a customer of Bank of Ireland. I would not bother my head going in.

Despite this, the bank representatives talk about digital progress. I hope it is as fast as they are making it out to be. I would not like to be looking for 120,000 staff with a digital application. I would not like to be the farmer depending on it either. What we have now is impersonal banking. There is no personal contact. At one time a customer could go into the local bank manager. The Vice Chairman knows this because he is president of an organisation. The bank manager knew the customer and everyone belonging to the customer. The bank manager made a decision based on the immediate situation. The bank manager knew who the customer was, what he or she would be and could rely upon that, but that approach does not work anymore. The bank representatives can come before the committee with glossy presentations and so on but I am afraid that I am inclined to tell the truth and tell them what I think rather than what they might like me to tell them. I have no wish to engage with that.

It is great that the bank representatives can come in with all of those things. They have not so much shocked me – I am not altogether surprised – but no farmer needed a tosser, as they say down the country, during the crisis. There were little blips and only a handful. I must be going around drumming up stuff in Westmeath and Longford if that is the situation. Either I must be drumming it up or I am sleepwalking and do not realise that everything is so good.

I cannot understand the position with the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland. Let us leave aside the Brexit money which we all acknowledge is important. The banks probably need more because I figure €300 million is only a start. We appreciate that fact. I imagine the banks are all working hard on Brexit scenarios unfolding. They can see that two people at the top of the British Government cannot agree about what day of the week it is never mind what is going to happen with Brexit. It is difficult for the banks just as it is difficult for anyone to try to guess what will happen. The prudent approach to any econometric evaluation is to evaluate for the worst scenario and then perhaps the best will unfold.

Is there a chance of making money available at reasonable prices? I imagine the bank representatives will tell me they are doing that. If that is the case, why is there hue and cry throughout the country? A well-to-do farmer dealing with one of the institutions before the committee asked me to keep highlighting the need for a Sparkasse model or a similar model in this country to give "those boyos" – that is what he called the banks – a rub of competition. The farmer in question works extremely hard. He works 18 hours a day. He is working the flesh off his bones to meet his commitments. He believes the banks are charging too much.

I will leave the witnesses with this thought. That farmer told me that he, his wife and his children are paying for the sins of the bankers. He said that the banks do not have the decency to put forward a loan with a decent rate. Meanwhile the banks are shouting. That is why he is calling for the community-based model of banking to shake up the system. It is an interesting thought. Perhaps the bank representatives might take the view that there is no need for community-based banking, that the existing banks are community-based and that they are giving away money at 2% or 3%, but I doubt it.