Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party)
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232. To ask the Minister for Finance the progress that has been made in relation to implementing the recommendations of the Financial Inclusion Strategy; if he will provide a list of other reports issued by the Financial Inclusion Working Group; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [56891/21]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I understand that the Deputy is referring to the Strategy for Financial Inclusion developed in 2011.

In March 2011, the previous Minister for Finance announced plans to restructure the Irish banking system. As part of the European Commission decision on the restructuring of Bank of Ireland, the State undertook to review the options available to achieve financial inclusion, drawing on best practice international approaches to resolving this issue.

The Strategy for Financial Inclusion was developed in 2011 in response to this. Its goal was to identify actions to achieve a substantial reduction in financial exclusion over a 3-5 year period. A review was conducted by a project team from the Social Finance Foundation under the aegis of a Steering Group composed of key stakeholders, which included the Department of Finance and the Money Advice and Budgeting Service (MABS).

The fundamental conclusion was that access to transaction banking should be the priority because it is key to accessing other financial services (for example insurance, savings and credit). Accordingly, the Strategy for Financial Inclusion called for the nationwide launch of a Standard Bank Account as a first step in promoting Financial Inclusion. The Minister then convened the Financial Inclusion Working Group (FIWG) to implement this recommendation.

A pilot project for a Basic Bank Account was run for a 9 month period and concluded in March 2013. The pilot was not extended to a national roll out because take up was very low (only 205 accounts were opened) and the Payment Accounts Directive was then being negotiated.

The Payment Accounts Directive was transposed into Irish law in 2016, and contains a right to open a payment account with basic features with a credit institution. All of the main retail banks in Ireland provide such bank accounts. The most recent figures from the Central Bank of Ireland shows that in 2019 there were 47,116 accounts with basic features opened across all the banks.