Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party)
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We have had the banking groups before the finance committee several times. We are aware of the market, the sector that the banks are in and the pressures that are there. There is a drive to push people online a lot of time, and that is across much of the retail sector. We see it in our main streets, where many of shops are not there anymore. I am sure that the same applies to the banks, as there are costs involved there as well.

In my own constituency of Wicklow, especially in the more rural parts in the south and in the west, we have seen the on-street banking provision completely gutted. Bank of Ireland branches have closed down and AIB in Blessington has reduced its services. A certain level of banking services should be provided to an acceptable standard and level for a population or geographical area. If we leave it to each of the individual players to say, “It is not for us, we are pulling out”, then there would be nothing there at all. It creates a void in huge geographical areas, as well as a real difficulty for people. Should there be some set standard that sets out the amount of banking services that shall be provided in a certain geographical population area? While those might not be in the form of permanent, on-street retail, they could be, for example, mobile or monthly. There should be the same level of service but there might not be the same frequency of provision of that service. Does Dr. Hunt understand where I am coming from?

I do. The industry as a whole is going through an extraordinary volume of change at the moment. I am not going to give free advertising to competitors by giving names of companies that are providing banking services but it is coming in multiple forms. There are digital-only banks and non-bank lenders, which all have an exclusively digital way of interacting with their customers. Right across the industry, not only in Ireland but globally, there is an ongoing move to reduce the number of branches. As I said earlier, we want to do something different. We look at the network and the physical presence we have as a distinguishing feature. We have the biggest network in the country and we will continue to have the biggest network in the country. This proposal was never about reducing our physical presence because we think that is a distinguishing feature. We think it is important from a competitive perspective because it shows we are there and embedded. Our staff live in the community. They are members of the local GAA club, golf club or whatever. They are actually living in these communities. For us, that is very important. This was never about us reducing our physical footprint. It was about us doing things differently within our existing physical footprint. That is now off the agenda.

On mobile banking, we have a number of mobile banks that are active in places like Kerry, Galway, Donegal and Mayo. They visit towns on a frequent basis but not five days a week.