Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 27 February 2024

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach

General Scheme of the Access to Cash Bill 2024: Discussion

Mr. Oliver Gilvarry:

I have mentioned a few times that if we see a change coming through, if there is an impact and if it does come back, there will be a point where we see this. As we have seen, an uptick has arisen in the use of cash in the 2022 figures from 2021. We can argue that some of this is because, as we have seen in other jurisdictions, there are higher interest rates, there is the slowdown of the economy and people are able to budget better by having a certain amount in their wallet at the start of the week, because they will know how much they will have to spend and they will not be relying on their card. All that comes through and it comes back to people’s financial literacy. Certain lower socio-economic groups use more cash. All of that, then, is a matter of defending against the local area deficiency. Those factors have to be taken into account with those declines.

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