Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Has Mr. Kelly ever been to Miltown Malbay? Has he ever been there during the Willie Clancy Summer School? Has he any idea that the impact of taking the bank out of Miltown Malbay has had? There is a post office there and the people who run it are excellent, progressive people. Inevitably, however, post offices close at a particular time. Even the supermarkets have ATMs, but they close at a particular time. One cannot lodge money at a supermarket. ATMs are very constrained in how much money they give out. Does Mr. Kelly have any idea why on earth anybody from a town like Miltown Malbay, Tulla or Kilkee would have any goodwill towards Bank of Ireland, given what it has done? It closed the branch but it left the branch in Ennistymon open, which is down the road. I put it to Mr. Kelly that the reason Bank of Ireland left the Ennistymon branch open but closed the branch in Miltown Malbay was because there is an AIB branch in Ennistymon and it had a competitor. Its customers had somewhere else to go in the case of people who lived in Ennistymon but they do not in the case of the people who live in Miltown Malbay. The same is true for Kilkee and Tulla.