Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not think so. The reason is, if one has a look at the staffing plans and investment plans that banks have here in Ireland, such a large share of it is in information technology, IT, investment. So many of the staffing decisions that our banks are now making are about how they hire the people who have the right level of expertise in IT and in cybersecurity. While it is undoubtedly the case, as the Deputy said, that if one looks at any of our three big banks the total head count that they have now versus where it would have been a decade ago is much smaller, I would suspect, if one looks at the amount of people that they have working in IT and in IT security as a share of the overall company, and maybe even in overall terms anyway, it is a great deal higher than the historical norm. When I meet the three different CEOs, a key issue they always bring up with me is how they are investing in IT, how they are recruiting in IT and, indeed, even the difficulty they have in recruiting in that area because it is so competitive in our economy.