Mr. Brian McDowell:

I thank the committee for allowing us the time to address it today and giving the matter so much time. I will reiterate what Mr. O'Connell said. The three main banks are undertaking reviews across the country. We know this is happening with Ulster Bank, AIB with its announcement during the week and Bank Ireland, which is undertaking a review in Northern Ireland. KBC is closing hubs. We have a consumer code of practice that is written by the Central Bank for the Central Bank to implement. Banks are now writing the future of banking in front of our eyes, which is why we are making a strong case for a debate on the future of banking in this country as soon as possible and why we met the Minister yesterday regarding the establishment of a banking forum. We would really appreciate it if this committee took a leading role in that because this is where legislation is passed. We will shortly publish a discussion paper that we will forward to every member of this committee. We really look forward to the committee's input. As my colleague said, what we do not want to happen is for us to look around for our local branch once we have exited the pandemic and find it is nowhere to be seen and that we have moved online across the country without anyone taking any notice of it. The National Adult Literacy Agency, NALA, produced a report that said that up to 18% of people did not have sufficient literacy levels to access online banking so we are leaving a lot of people behind at present through the closure of branches and so on. A real discussion is needed. We will publish a report very shortly and will forward it to members of the committee. We would really appreciate it if the committee could have a discussion on the future of banking as soon as possible.