Mairéad Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We heard the very difficult news this week that Bank of Ireland is shutting 103 of its branches, North and South. Bank of Ireland has used the pandemic as a pretext to close branches and to cut costs. Its concern seems to be for its bottom line, with loyal customers and citizens of the State being forgotten. The State has been a significant shareholder in Bank of Ireland ever since we bailed it out. Let us recall that Bank of Ireland received €4.7 billion from the Irish State, including over €1 billion in preference shares that the State had required as part of its recapitalisation of the bank. The National Pensions Reserve Fund was raided at the time. Today it will be many pensioners, older people and those who are not as digitally literate who will suffer from these branch closures. Given the State's significant shareholding in Bank of Ireland, what role does the Minister have? What will he do to protect these vulnerable people? It seems that once again rural areas are being hit by a decimation of services and the Government must finally stand up for those areas.

We saw more shocking news this week with what is happening with Davy's failure to hold its board accountable. What has been reported in the media seems to be blatant corporate malfeasance for which the Central Bank has imposed a fine of €4.1 million. History has told us that fines rarely work to change the behaviour of large financial institutions. It has been reported in the media that 16 Davy staff members including top level people - the media have even mentioned the current CEO - have hoodwinked their clients and deceived their own compliance department. It has been reported that when engaging with the Central Bank it gave vague and misleading details and wilfully withheld information that would have disclosed the full extent of the wrongdoing.

Under the Companies Act 2014, directors are required to act in good faith, to act honestly and responsibly, and to avoid conflicts of interest. Penalties for breaches of the Companies Act include criminal and civil sanctions. This morning on "Morning Ireland", the Minister called on Davy to make a public statement on the matter. Was that it? That is extremely weak based on what has been reported. Why bother? Is the Minister asking that so we can be told the actions were regrettable, they do not meet the standards of best practice and they will do better in the future? That is simply not good enough. We have heard all that guff before. We need to show the public we are serious about this. It is high time we introduced the senior executive accountability regime that has long been promised but never delivered.

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