Dr. Colin Hunt:

It comes back to the core purpose, which is ultimately to be a relationship bank. We are very proud of the fact we have a network that is the most national network of any institution in the State today. Other institutions took other decisions in regard to how they were going to deal with the evolution of the banking industry. We remain very firmly attached to that network. We remain very strongly of the view that the branches that we have, the length of and breadth of the island, are key not only in terms of what happens within them, but because of what it represents on the main streets of towns and cities in the country.

I go back to the early days of Covid. So many of our customers and so many businesses were forced to close. We took a very deliberate choice. We had the option to stay open or to close. We took the decision to keep our doors open because of the visibility of a business being active at a time of huge stress for the country. We have an exceptionally strong attachment to our network, to the people who work there and to the customers we serve there.