Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

There were 15 branches closed last year. Another element to this is that Ireland is also undergoing a spatial crisis. The capital is overheating and the commuter belt is sprawling into Ulster, Connacht and Munster, with all of the focus on the capital, while regional towns and villages are emptying out. There are towns in my constituency where you could play hurling on the main street at midday because everybody is commuting out of them. The economic heart and soul of these towns is being ripped apart not just by the closing of banks, but by the closing of all of the other facilities. The closure of banks is a part of that jigsaw as regards creating energy. If you live in Athboy, you have to travel to Navan or Mullingar to do your banking. People are therefore not going into Athboy. They will not get their hair cut there and will not go to the pub for a pint or to the restaurant for a sandwich and so on. There are major problems in this regard. I would like the question of breathing new life into towns and cities in the country to be at the front and centre of Dr. Hunt's bank's corporate responsibilities to ensure that these towns and cities remain viable.

The other element in all of this is the lack of competition. One of the reasons banks can get away with closing banks or reducing cash facilities is that we have an enormous banking crisis. There is now very little competition. The banking system is concentrated in so few hands that AIB is operating as an oligopoly. I studied economics in UCD, and the current situation is very close to an oligopoly market. That means that suppliers have enormous power. The banks can dictate most of the interactions they have with customers and those customers simply have to take it. There is great inertia with regard to changing banks. There are 500,000 Ulster Bank and KBC accounts still open. Those banks are leaving the market. That shows how inertia affects the banking market. The bank has to take into consideration the very great power it has. That power was given to it by the State because the State specifically set up a pillar bank system that gave the banks market control and market share and created an imbalance between the banks and their customers. That is not AIB's fault but the fault of the Government for allowing it to happen.