Mr. Gavin Kelly:

Obviously, last year we did not reach that decision lightly. To answer the Deputy's question, I have been to all of those locations. I have visited all our branches when they were open. All three of us who are before the committee today visited all 88 locations in the week before they closed to speak to communities, to be there and to represent the bank. This was not reached lightly. As I said, we looked at our footprint across the entire country. We wanted to ensure that we provided a service across every county, including in County Clare. We also support that with the post office, which is important for us because there are 900 post offices that can give access to cash to customers. As I said earlier, we saw a change. We had not altered our branch network in any shape or form for well over ten or 15 years before that, but we did reach a tipping point last year in terms of customer usage. We have strived since then and we continue to strive to support customers through the post office and through our existing branch network of 169 branches around the country which have full access to cash. We will continue to provide that service for as long as customers want it.