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. John Palmer:

There is one scenario where that could be done. If cash demand drops by 50%, we might reach the conclusion that we need to keep the number of locations where an ATM is available. However, where there are multiple ATMs, which tends to be in bank branches with every bank having two, three, four or five machines, in the future they may well be able to get away with half the number because quite simply they are not being used. However, there would still be an ATM there. I do not think population criteria in terms of distance from an ATM will change very much, but I see the number of ATMs coming down. However, if the result of the number coming down was that more rural areas of the country were losing their ATMs, local deficiencies would immediately be triggered.