Mr. Brian McDowell:

There are not many businesses taking on more customers with fewer staff to serve them. Both AIB and Bank of Ireland are expecting a couple of hundred thousand extra customers and they will have fewer staff serving them than they had at the start of the year and considerably fewer staff than they had 12 months ago. As Mr. O'Connell has pointed out there are staffing issues in all 500 bank branches throughout the country. It would require 500 additional people just to put one extra staff member in each of those branches. That is an example of the resources required.