Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We are only a matter of months away from Ulster Bank and KBC leaving the Irish banking market. Almost 1 million Ulster Bank customers will need to find a new bank and the same will apply to 130,000 KBC customers. Two weeks ago, the Governor of the Central Bank told me that banks are not ready to deal with the biggest transfer of bank accounts the State has ever experienced. The potential for catastrophe is obvious, but the Department of Finance is completely oblivious to this. It has taken a vow of silence. It is a bystander. In fact, it is not even a commentator on it. This is part of a wider hands-off laissez-fairepolicy when it comes to banks. There is nothing if not consistency from the Department of Finance. Yesterday the Minister issued a statement thanking the outgoing head of Bank of Ireland for her work over the years but we are still waiting for the banking division in the Department to say anything about the fate of almost 1 million ordinary bank customers in the coming months.

Ulster Bank will give its customers six months to switch their accounts to a new bank or to open a new account elsewhere. In the case of KBC it will be three months. Even in ordinary times, "banks" and "good customer service" are words we rarely hear in the same sentence. The fact that branches have been closed and good bank jobs have been sacrificed has not helped. Staff are under huge pressure as it stands. The recent Central Bank assessment suggests that 50% of customers waiting on the phone line have to hang up because it takes so long to get a simple query answered. This is an historical analysis.

How can we have any confidence the big switch will go well for customers? The switching code is ancient. It predates GDPR laws. I can see GDPR rules being quoted as the omni-excuse over the coming weeks and months for the poor performance of banks. Direct debit receivers and originators of recurring payments are not covered by the switching code. The banks themselves have said this. Direct debit originators will not always take an instruction from a bank. This leaves the customer with an awful lot of work to do. People who want to open a new joint account with AIB or Permanent TSB have to show up at the branch. This is if they can get an appointment over the next period of time.

More than 1 million accounts are in play here. There are tens of millions of direct debits, standing orders and overdrafts. People have enough to worry about at present, as I hope the Taoiseach will admit, without being kept awake at night with the fear of a bounced direct debit payment on their mortgage. This would kill their clean credit record through no fault of their own. Does the Taoiseach agree with what the Governor of the Central Bank told me two weeks ago, that the exiting and receiving banks are not ready to meet the scale of this switching challenge? What does the Government plan to do to hold Ulster Bank and KBC to account? Does the Taoiseach agree the receiving banks left on the market should significantly staff up to meet the demands that will be placed on them in the coming weeks and months? Should the Central Bank use its powers to delay the departure timetables of the exiting banks if the process is not working for their customers? What will the Government do to ensure customers have a real banking choice in this economy?

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