Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In case Deputy Murphy had not noticed, a large number of banks are leaving the country. At the moment, tens of thousands of individual customers and business customers of Ulster Bank and KBC are trying to find a new bank. Among the reasons those banks are leaving the country is that while they can make profits here, they actually would make more profits for their capital in other countries. That is one of the stated reasons they are leaving Ireland.

It is true that interest rates are higher in Ireland than in other eurozone countries. It is also true that bank charges are lower. There are signing fees that do not exist in Ireland. It is the case in Ireland that we have a much lower level of repossessions, which is a good thing by the way. That has a knock-on effect of socialising the cost of that in higher interest rates. There are many reasons as to why interest rates in Ireland are higher than in other European countries.

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