Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

On the future of money, we see statistics about banks being branchless and in the cloud, while there are new mobile phone applications and so on to allow people to pay for things. There are many changes. People use the tap feature on their cards much more often and are not using cash the way they were. How does Professor Lane, as the Governor of the Central Bank, expect the situation to develop? How does he expect society to change the behaviour of people who are not so comfortable with technology, debit cards or credit cards or who are not so trusting of the banks for many reasons, some of which are justified? It probably does not make sense for people to store cash under the bed or for vans to be Army-escorted out of Sandyford at the end of every month to be put in automated telling machines that will be dragged out at 3 a.m. by diggers and so on. Cash will be less influential than it was. How does Professor Lane expect that to develop?