Mr. John O'Connell:

I thank the Senator. We approach all the points she raised from the point of view of competition, consumers and colleagues. In terms of any of the issues she highlighted, whether that is branch closures, non-performing loans or how to categorise the impact of these on people and so forth, they have to be approached from the point of view of the purpose of the regulator and what we are asking the regulator to do. I do not believe we are being unreasonable in expecting that the approach to any of those issues would be that the consumer and jobs are protected. That is not to say that things cannot change. That is not our track record but if we have a situation where the regulator is asking for two months notice, the impact of that on the community will be felt for a long time. For instance, a research paper which I can share with the committee shows that if a branch closes lending to the SME sector drops by 64%. If that is the last branch in town, that figure is significantly higher for obvious reasons. The impact we are talking about will be on real people. These are people who rely on the manager in their local bank branch to support them in good times and in bad. That is the impact that studies have shown in that regard.

In terms of the national broadband system, we are not quite there yet so many of the communities that are impacted by closures are communities that do not have the support of a good broadband network. I was in north Mayo on holidays during the summer and I could hardly get a phone signal, let alone a broadband connection. We are telling the communities that if they set up SMEs in these areas it will drive business and so forth but if there is not the infrastructure in those areas they do not have a hope to do that, and a banking infrastructure is a key part of any community.