Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)

I welcome that the Minister of State has undertaken to ensure we receive a written response to any of the questions he cannot respond to today. The Minister of State referred in his reply to the call by the Governor of the Bank of England for an investigation into this matter. There has been no call by our Financial Regulator, which regulates Ulster Bank in this State, for any investigation. Where a problem occurs in a bank, be it hiding of losses in terms of its capital or an IT failure, it is already too late. We have structures in place to ensure this does not happen.

Is the Minister of State satisfied that the Financial Regulator was robust enough in terms of ensuring emergency contingency plans were in place at Ulster bank? Is he satisfied that other banks in this State, of which the majority of people in this state are customers, have contingency plans in place? Ulster Bank assurances aside, what does the Government propose to do in this regard? The Minister of State said he hoped the banks would return to employing counter staff rather than relying on IT systems. That, unfortunately, is not what is going to happen. We all know that the banks will soon lay off thousands of people. IT managers in the banks are working overtime to devise automated systems. This is an issue of huge importance in terms of customer relations into the future and confidence in our banking system.

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