Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. As a society, we want to be more conscious of the people who do not have good literacy skills and who have not had the opportunity to adopt IT skills. Those people find it difficult to transact business today, especially when they cannot call into a local branch. It behoves all of us to ensure that there is an opportunity for people to transact their business in a practical way, especially people who may not have had the opportunity to acquire IT skills or who may not have access to broadband etc. It is important that those views are represented.

As the Minister is aware, the central banks of Britain and in New Zealand are conducting reviews on the subject matter of access to cash. We often think of ATMs as a mechanism to withdraw cash, but they are an important lodgement facility as well. In public banking meetings throughout the country, local communities expressed concern about hospitality and other retail businesses having to carry large amounts of cash and not having the opportunity to lodge that cash in a timely manner locally. We need to address the issue of access to cash.

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