Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

While I have the Minister of State here, it would be wrong not to raise a particular issue. In fairness, it is an incredibly important one. We have all heard about the major concerns. Even in recent weeks, people have raised those concerns with us. One lady contacted me about her dad. There was some element of confusion at a senior football match in the Dundalk area. As he was not au fait with phone apps or whatever, he was not able to purchase tickets. There was some confusion. In fairness, the Louth county board stated that it will do absolutely anything to ensure that this does not happen again in respect of people who are only able to use cash, particularly those who have given long service to the GAA. The board has allocated tickets in respect of people who fall into this bracket that the clubs can hand out. It is vital that this sort of thing happens.

We need to ensure that there is a sufficient supply of cash. Even in places where there is a sufficient number of ATMs, there have been times when, for example, over busy bank holiday weekends, when these have not necessarily been filled. People who cannot get access to a shop with an ATM during the day sometimes have to travel huge distances in order to get cash. Access to cash is something that we need to facilitate. While it may suit many people to be able to pay by tapping or making purchases online, that does not suit a significant number of other individuals. Access to cash is an absolute right. Therefore, it is an absolute necessity that the legislation make provision to ensure that sufficient cash is available for people to access.

In the context of the provision and maintenance of ATMs, it would be fair to say that we should be able to offer Irish language options of equal quality to the English versions and that every self-service machine should be able to accept words with fadas and allow Irish names to be properly recorded. Even if it is not a default option on ATMs, it should be very simple to access the Irish language option at the home page. This could be quite easily done, and it should be done. It probably should have been done a long time ago, but it could be done now. It would absolutely suit us to do it in this State. This issue has not been dealt with before.

We must ensure that we make allowances for particular businesses and community operations that will need to make cash transactions from time to time. We need an analysis of the entire market and, beyond that, our society from the point of view of being able to deliver this.

I was hoping that the Minister would be here. Deputy Nash and I raised this issue yesterday. I have spoken with the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, about it. Connect Credit Union is concerned about a particular issue. I raise it because we are talking about making sure these services are available across the board. The closure of the Kilsaran and Clogherhead branches of the Connect Credit Union gave rise to major unease. The level of interaction and consultation on the matter has been insufficient. Two rival special general meetings took place in recent days. I attended one of them in O'Connell's GFC. Well over 200 people were present. That just shows the depth of feeling in the area. Contact has been made with the Central Bank. While I accept that there are procedures for dealing with matters of this nature, I am of the view that there needs to be an element of "eyes on" in respect of it.

We need to ensure that people are offered access to ATM services and cash. We also need to ensure that we post office services are available. We need to do our part, not only to provide credit unions with the power to offer mortgages, etc., but also to ensure that they remain connected to the communities in which they are located. Déanfaidh sin cúis.

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