Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. McDowell and Mr. O'Connell for being here today to answer questions. We have seen considerable withdrawal of post office and bank services from towns and villages. It is obviously driven by profitability. They want to withdraw that shopfront service, which is very important to people, and go online. Online is fine when it works well but when it does not work well, people need that customer interface, which is lacking in many situations. We do not seem to have much control over that. It is very much down to these entities to decide whether they will withdraw or withdraw completely. We could not even get one such entity to attend here today. In light of that and looking at the pattern of how things have been going, does Mr. O'Connell think there is any role for a community banking system in this country? Could a community banking system offer that alternative that would offer people something different from that offered by established banking systems, which might make those established banking systems up their game a bit and say "there is some competition in the town"? Mr. O'Connell spoke of that local branch knowledge that is out there. I would like to hear his comments on community banking system like the Sparkasse model in Germany. I know it was discussed in 2018.