Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis na finnéithe as teacht isteach inniu agus cur i láthair a chur os ár gcomhair. I thank our guests for attending. We greatly appreciate the presentation.

I thank them also for the survey results they delivered to us. Some of the figures are incredible. Only 9% of staff feel their branch or department is adequately staffed and this falls to 6% in AIB or Bank of Ireland. A total of 88% of staff feel their staffing difficulties are leading to bad customer service, an incredible situation. Sometimes I believe there is a banking crisis happening in this country that is not being taken seriously by the Government. There is a reduction in the number of banking companies, staff, branches and ATMs, and this is significantly hurting customers and staff. That market is being radically concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer banks, which means those banks have more and more power over their customers. It is leading to the physical retreat of banking in the sector and these decisions to retreat are motivated more by a reduction in overheads and increase in profits than by the patterns of behaviour of customers. We often hear the banks say they are leaving the physical realm because people want to do their trade in the digital realm and are voting with their feet in that regard. In our guests' view, is this being driven by customer wants and needs or by the desires of the banks to decrease overheads and increase profits?