Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I ask the Minister to follow up with the committee on that because public consultation was supposed to happen. It was not a secret document or anything. We need a cross-governmental multi-annual financial crime strategy and the Department of Finance should be at the heart of it. It needs to include our online agencies, banking representatives, the Garda and the Department of Justice, but I suggest the Department of Finance needs to step up to this big issue. We may all be failing together but we are failing and other jurisdictions are before us. They have shared fraud databases, plans and reports, and recommendations are being received in relation to online activity. For example, the British Government is looking at the fact that the likes of Google and Facebook should not be charging the central bank for warnings to be put on their platforms because some of the fraudsters are paying these companies, unbeknown to the companies, to carry out the frauds. These platforms should carry the advertisements for free. There are other recommendations we need to look at.

I move to the issue of AIB. Will the Minister outline when he and his officials were informed of the proposal by AIB to withdraw cash services from 70 of its branches?