Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 6:

In page 12, between lines 10 and 11, to insert the following:

“Report on the acceptance of cash within the Irish economy and to set out a legislative approach to ensuring the broad obligation to accept cash into the future

7. The Minister shall, in recognition of the interrelationship between access to cash and acceptance of cash will within 3 months of the passing of this Act, prepare and lay before Dáil Éireann report the acceptance of cash within the Irish economy and to set out a legislative approach to ensuring the broad obligation to accept cash into the future.”.

This amendment would insert a new section into this legislation. It asks the Central Bank of Ireland to collect and publish data on cash infrastructure. It calls for a report on the acceptance of cash and on how we ensure, legally, that the broad acceptance of cash would take effect in our State, or where it is at a point in time. Without legal protection to ensure acceptance of cash, all this Bill will achieve is the managed decline of cash because we see areas where cash is not accepted. Forgive me for stating the obvious, but cash is only good if you can use it. Euro banknotes and coins are legal tender in the euro area, with cash being the only form of Central Bank money to which everyone can have direct access to currently. This means that all other money is created by the creation of debt, the vast majority by the private banking sector or system. We need a digital euro to give us a public form of digital money, but until this happens, we only have cash.

This issue goes from the ground level, where people want the right to use their cash in their local shops or when they go to watch their local football team, all the way to the core of our economic and monetary system. We cannot and should not give up on cash. For many people, cash helps them to track their expenses. It is not required that they be literate or even computer literate to use cash. It ensures their freedom and autonomy. Banknotes and coins are the only form of money people can keep without involving a third party. They do not need access to equipment, access to the Internet or even electricity to pay with cash, which means it can be used even when the power is down or they lose their card.

The EU Commission recommendation from 2010 sought to clarify the definition of legal tender as set out in EU treaties. That recommendation clarified legal tender. It implied mandatory acceptance, but that was never reflected in Irish law or in the State's approach to cash. In June 2023, the European Commission adopted a draft regulation seeking to give force to that recommendation. The European Commission's proposal requires that euro cash acceptance should be mandatory across the euro area.

We should not have to wait for the EU to tell us that this is what we have to do. We can and should take the necessary steps to protect the use of cash. If that is not done, as I said, there is no point having access to cash if where people want to spend that cash, or the businesses or entities in which they want to use it, will not accept it.

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