Mr. John O'Connell:

I think that is it in a nutshell. During Covid, we all changed our behaviours because we had to. Banking & Payments Federation Ireland was publishing footfall figures — every other day, it seemed — because it wanted to emphasise that everybody was gone digital. The Department of Finance survey busted that myth and showed that people still want to have face-to-face access. Let me refer to the biggest problem at the moment, which has still not been dealt with and which we relayed to the Central Bank. The behavioural change during Covid was all for the sake of public health and well-being and everybody understood the rationale, but the current change is different. It is a change that involves two banks departing and three banks receiving. We feel the change process is being used as a Trojan horse to force people onto digital platforms. Consumers should be given a choice as to what platform they want to do their banking on. By having no staff available in branches and call centres, waiting times and drop-off rates of 50%, one is being forced into a certain arrangement. One has to do one's transaction in one way or the other. We believe that what is happening is a Trojan horse to force people onto digital channels when they do not want that. If people are comfortable with digital channels, that is fine — we have members working in all these areas — but it is an issue if they have no choice but to do something other than what they want because the service is so poor, locking them into that.