James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Troy for allowing me to use some of his time and the House for allowing me to speak. This is a very important issue to me personally. We must remember the prelude to why this came about through the good work of the previous Minister, Michael McGrath, and now with the Minister, Deputy Chambers. I recognise my constituency neighbour in the Minister of State, Deputy Butler. During the current Dáil, we saw the widescale withdrawal of commercial banking from communities across the country. Many Members of the House, including myself, joined forces to push against the pillar banks' systematic pulling out of rural towns. In my own constituency, places like Mitchelstown and Youghal, a town of 8,000 people, would have been left with no bank if AIB had pulled out, with Bank of Ireland having already closed its bank in that town. This has devastating consequences when it comes to small, independent retailers. I am talking about the local florist, the bakery and the day-to-day businesses that populate main streets far away from urban centres like Dublin. Important as it is here, when you go to the countryside people are a little bit different in how they live their lives. As a rural TD, I am conscious of the importance that cash has for small businesses. I am thinking of our restaurant sector as well. I had meetings with restaurateurs yesterday where we spoke about the challenges facing them. Tipping means that cash is a big part of the lives of the service staff and employees whom these people hire, whether they are young students in part-time employment during their undergraduate studies, or people who might be working summer jobs during their holidays from secondary school.

The other important aspect is the security situation. If we move to an entirely digital economy where everything is done by contactless payment off mobile phones, we are leaving ourselves in an enormously vulnerable position from a national security perspective. Some countries in the European Union have already been having a conversation about the necessity of making sure hard cash tender is in circulation in the event of a major cyberattack. We saw what happened with international aviation due to the UK air traffic issues. When there is a major outage, that can impact the economy and the logistics of our day-to-day lives. We are very vulnerable if we allow things to persist without bringing forward legislation like this, which pretty much gives further effect to the fact that cash, as Deputy Troy has said, is legal tender.

I call on the most important organisations in our State in the sporting field and our commercial banks to ensure they continue to offer legitimate cash services through ATMs in their bank branches, and also ensure bank branches have working ATMs in place. I do not know how many times I have gone to an ATM, no matter where I am, with the intention of spending that money locally, to find an out-of-order sign on the front of it. This is wholly and entirely unacceptable. All Members of this House should get behind this important bipartisan legislation to support the main streets of our towns and villages, our small businesses and those who depend on cash in their day-to-day lives, whether they are elderly, vulnerable or it is just part of their day-to-day lives. With the Ceann Comhairle's indulgence, I would like to conclude by mentioning that in agriculture there is a strong tradition when trading cattle, animals, livestock or machinery that cash is part and parcel of day-to-day business.

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