Mr. John O'Connell:

People are being told that the best advice for them is to close their account and move. That is not actually the best advice. The best advice is to get an appointment to open an account first. The switcher process exists and has law behind it. The banks are required to make it available if customers want it to be available, then they start the transition. I can use the Deputy's county as an example. People find that when they go to one branch, they are told they cannot open an account and have to do it all online, then in another branch, they are told something different, are given a date or their name is taken and is put in a book. We know that people are recording and so on in other counties. The banks, including Bank of Ireland specifically, made a presentation to us. They said they have set up a system to book in business customers, which they will set up for personal customers too. Many resources are involved. Looking at the workload involved, with people going flat-out, it does not equate with the numbers that have been presented to us. That circle needs to be squared.

We appreciate that efforts are being made and that staffing initiatives are under way, but as the Central Bank stated last week, we are not there yet. It again begs the question of why Ulster Bank pulled the trigger and whether KBC should pull the trigger on 1 June or if that should be deferred until the Central Bank, which is the regulator, states that the receiving banks are now ready. It could say what the wait times are and what standard of service people can expect as customers of the receiving banks. It is fair to ask if KBC should go ahead and if we can restart the clock with Ulster Bank. We are saying that there needs to be a reasonable timeframe, until the end of 2023, to allow all of these things to go through.