Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

I must go back to the question to which Deputy Curran referred. The person with the credit cards who does Internet banking will save money as a result of this. However, we must remember the older person who maybe did not have a bank account at all for years, who then opens a bank account and gets used to using the cheque book. Apart from the penalty, the danger is that this will force some people back to using cash and keeping large sums of cash at home, over the shop or wherever they might be, with all the security risks that poses, especially as they advance in years. Some €17 million is a lot of money to take from people who pay only by cheque.

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