Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 8 December 2020

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

Financial Services Union: Discussion.

Mr. John O'Connell:

I think the remedy is for Ulster Bank to sit back down with us. It outlined to us in July in quite an amount of detail what it would take back to reset the bank and deal with the challenges it said it was facing. We got to the exploratory stage of that discussion when the rug was pulled so for us, it is really about resetting the clock and Ulster Bank coming back to the table, acting responsibly, committing to the Irish market of which it has been a part for 200 years and engaging again with us. As I said, we have a good track record. We fight our own corner and make no apologies for that but we have a good track record of working out change. We believe the bank has a future - a bright future - if it engages with us like that.