Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There is no doubt that the banking sector in Ireland has been heavily impacted over the past 15 months. Unfortunately, the impact has been felt mainly by customers, particularly some of our older citizens. Over the past month, we have heard announcements that Bank of Ireland is closing 88 outlets across the State. These outlets offer an important community service, particularly to those who are not confident about or who do not trust the Internet for their banking. A visit to the bank is an important element in the week of many older citizens. The weekly food shop and the meeting with friends are often organised on the day on which they do their banking activities. These individuals, who are often pensioners, were the small business owners of yesterday and they were perhaps the most loyal customers of the banks. Many have been loyal to one bank throughout their lives. The decision of Bank of Ireland is, of course, a commercial decision but it is a decision that seems to have been made with scant regard for their most loyal customers.

Some services are to be made available in local post offices. While that is a welcome decision, the full repertoire of banking services will not be available in the post office.

One of the branches due to close in Limerick is the Bank of Ireland located in Roxboro Shopping Centre. Here there are shops with little shop fronts and small enterprises that are reliant on the footfall generated by having a bank nearby. I suspect the closure of this branch will, unfortunately, cause difficulties for those entrepreneurs who have established themselves at this location. It is worth remembering that research suggests that bank branch closures reduce SME lending growth by 63%. This is an added stress for an area that is one of the most deprived not only in the city but across the State.

Bank of Ireland should have delayed both the announcement and implementation of its decision until after the Covid-19 pandemic. Bank of Ireland is not the only banking institution that has made such a regrettable decision during the pandemic. Its decision quickly followed Ulster Bank's decision to exit the southern market.

It is welcome that we are discussing the future of banking today. It is an issue my party has been eager to discuss. Banking is changing and we need all the relevant stakeholders to be ready for this change.

To that end we in Sinn Féin have been calling for a future of banking forum to be established so that these changes and a banking response to them can be discussed. I hope the Government is willing to establish such an important banking forum and that it does this as soon as possible.

Banking in this State faces some major challenges over the coming months, challenges that need to be addressed head-on. To my mind they include how the banks continue to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic and to the legacy that the impact of the virus will leave. As regards effective and continued regulation of the sector, we are all too aware of what can happen when such oversight is lacking.

How do we utilise other resources such as credit unions and tackle the scourge of both legal and illegal moneylending. We have not had a public banking system in this State and this is something that I would like to see change. In Germany there is the Sparkasse group of savings banks, the first of which was established in Hamburg in 1778. It was created out of a need to invest in the country and to maintain as close ties as possible to local communities. While we may not have a State banking system in this State we have An Post and credit unions.

The credit unions, of which I am a proud member and have been for years, are an important institution within the communities in which they operate. If the policy existed we could utilise these pillars and model them on the Sparkasse example. Creating this as another banking pillar could offer a competitive opportunity for people across the State. The creation of such a system could create a banking opportunity that is sensitive to the needs of citizens and not to those of vulture funds.

Providing banking services via our post office network would provide loans and mortgages at lower and affordable interest rates. Profits generated could be reinvested back into local communities and could give a lifeline to the struggling post office network.

The Minister of State will be aware that the Provident personal credit company has thankfully decided to leave and cease its operations but we need to be wary of what might come after that. The concern I have is that the void that it leaves in some of the most disadvantaged areas across our State will be taken up by regular and licensed moneylenders who gouge their customers or, unfortunately, be taken by illegal moneylenders who are worse. Some of the most deprived people who are struggling for money and have a problem with a communion or where an electrical appliance breaks down have nowhere else to go for money. We need to ensure that we legislate properly and that people who are illegally dealing in moneylending have to be stamped down on as fast and as strongly as we can to put them out of business. While we discuss the future of banking we have the opportunity to discuss these issues and provide protection and confidence to our citizens.

In conclusion, we as legislators have a great deal of work to do on banking. A positive step that the Minister of State could take would be to establish that forum which we talked about that could assemble the views of stakeholders and qualified experts so that we can future-proof banking in this State. We need to get it right as we all know what happened when it went wrong, where hundreds of thousands of people emigrated, many never to return. We never need to go back to that again. Gabhaim buíochas.

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