Mr. Ger Deering:

I will respond first and then I will hand over to my colleague. I thank the Deputy for his comments. I absolutely agree with the Deputy that the publication of decisions brings confidence. The fact that the decisions are available and people can look at them and form their own view is the ultimate accountability mechanism.

On the Deputy's latter point in relation to asylum seekers and refugees not being able to open bank accounts, we have been consulted on that issue. While we do not play a role in making decisions in these policy areas, when an issue arises, we will deal with an individual complaint.

I am glad to note that to my understanding, there has been some movement within the past few weeks on that. I gather, through work by the Department of Justice, that it has found a way to allow people to open an account without necessarily having to have a utility bill, which is a problem if a person does not have his or her own home or place to have a utility bill in.

We are coming to the end of our first three-year strategic plan and are putting together our next strategic plan. Some of issues referred to include some of the bricks-and-mortar banks moving out and the move to online banking, which will bring huge challenges for all of us, particularly for us. I might hand over to the deputy ombudsman to talk about some of the research and work we have been doing in that area and what we are looking at there and anticipating.