Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have a couple of other questions. At the beginning of the meeting, the availability of cash was discussed. We welcome the intervention on the part of the Central Bank in relation to the availability of cash. I do not think it is sufficiently available yet. There are glitches. The number of cash machines you approach nowadays only to be told the machine is temporarily out of order is inconvenient. If a person is looking for cash for something, or is in need of cash urgently, it may be necessary to travel around three, four or five machines in the rain and face the elements in order to get cash. I mean a reasonable amount of cash that will not break the bank. I do not think that it is operating properly. I hope that might be taken into account. While doing that, we had a cash machine in this building, which was taken away by the provider during the Covid-19 lockdown on the basis that there was very little football. It was not making a profit. The guys who come up with these notions and excuses must think we are all fools, and that the Central Bank and the Chairman must be fools. They have no regard for consumers' rights or individual rights. We are entitled to a reasonable excuse. We are also entitled to the machine being put back in its place for the convenience of the very large number of people who operate in this establishment. It is the national Parliament. You access a cash machine virtually anywhere. It might not be working but you can access one in any shop, supermarket or anywhere we like throughout the country. It is a distinct discourtesy to the House of Parliament to do that. I ask that every effort be made to encourage the lending institution, or whatever institution is providing much of this cash, to restore to the Houses of the Oireachtas the machine that was already in operation.

On customers' access to their own money, that is something I have had a number of complaints about. There are several restrictions restricting the customer from getting his or her money out of his or her bank. In other words, there is a slow down. Allegedly that is to protect the customer. I would like to know a bit more about that. I think it is to annoy the customer, because that is exactly what it does. The customer decides to go to a bank, some change is taking place, he or she puts in their PIN number and the notice comes up "Wrong PIN number". Every man, woman and even child knows they have put in the same PIN number every time. It is not the wrong PIN number, but the security system obviously is doing a double check, which knocks it out. Two tries or two strikes and you are out. They then get cut off and get no money. It may be urgent as far as they are concerned. I was asked to bring that to the witnesses' attention. Hopefully, we will receive a satisfactory response as well as to a lot of the other issues.