Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome back the members of the Opposition. They were missing last night, for large periods of time, and I was covering the Opposition benches for quite a long time. It is great to see them back. They obviously had nothing to contribute on the budget yesterday. Three Bank of Ireland branches have closed in the past number of days in County Tipperary in Cahir, Cashel and Templemore. It is a huge devastating impact for those towns, businesses and people who live in those areas. Another bank, AIB in Fethard, is closing an awful lot of its services in early December. It is not closing entirely, but an awful lot of its services are closing. Can we have a debate with the Minister for Finance about what we can do to support rural towns and communities with banking services going forward?

It is like a drip feed. Every couple of months, it is one town here, one town there. Before one knows it, a whole region of a county or an area has no bank. The bank in Killenaule closed approximately eight or nine years ago. All the customers in Killenaule were told to move their services to Fethard, which is only 14 or 15 miles away - no problem. They all moved their services to Fethard, until this week, when they are told to move to Clonmel, now Fethard is closing. It is a drive of approximately 35 miles to get to Clonmel from Killenaule. It is not feasible. We have other AIB services in Cahir. The Bank of Ireland is closed in Cahir and we only have AIB. The fear now is over what will happen to Cahir and Cashel.

These are tourist towns in which services are needed. We all know when we go abroad, we use the ATMs and bank services more regularly than we would when we are at home. These are tourist towns that need those services. We need to have a plan for how we can support rural communities and towns, especially in Tipperary and throughout the country, in the services they are provided. I recognise Bank of Ireland services have now gone to the post offices and I encourage people to use the post office, as much as possible, but there is a problem. People are being asked to travel a long distance. Sometimes, businesses are bringing large sums of money with them to banks. People are very upset.