Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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224. To ask the Minister for Finance the degree to which he is satisfied that cash remains readily available to customers through the banks via ATMs or other means; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30453/23]

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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In recent years, the banking landscape has changed significantly in Ireland. The number of banks serving the sector reduced from 12 to 3 as banks were amalgamated or closed down and foreign owned entrants exited the Irish retail market. There has also been a considerable acceleration in technological developments and the pace of uptake has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. With that has come a decline in cash usage.

In November 2022, the Retail Banking Review was published by my Department. It concluded that, despite this decline, cash remains an important element of the payments system and the broader economy and it is essential that cash remains readily available to customers through ATMs and other means across the country. It also concluded that there was still reasonable access to cash at the moment but noted that neither the Minister for Finance, nor the Central Bank, had any powers to ensure this.

Accordingly the Review recommended that the Department of Finance should develop Access to Cash legislation and prepare heads of a bill in 2023 with the initial objective of developing criteria that would secure access to cash at about the levels prevailing in December 2022 but also provide for such criteria to be amended appropriately in future as and when cash usage declines further. The key objective is to ensure that evolution of the access to cash infrastructure does not move ahead of society's needs and expectations and that the future evolution is handled in a fair, transparent and equitable manner.

The Review also called on Department officials to prepare heads of a bill in 2023 to require ATM operators to be authorised and supervised by the Central Bank and to provide the Central Bank with responsibility and powers to protect the resilience of the cash system including the authorisation and supervision of cash-in-transit firms in respect of their cash handling activities and related financial services. It is my intention to fully honour this commitment and this work is now well underway by officials in my Department. It is intended that one piece of legislation will be drafted for all three recommendations on access to cash, including the aspects on IADs.

My officials are already working on Heads of Bill for this important piece of legislation and will bring the Heads to Government before the end of this year to seek approval to draft the Bill and to submit it for pre-legislative scrutiny to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform and the Taoiseach.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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225. To ask the Minister for Finance if the role of the banks in this jurisdiction is being replaced by investments funds; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30454/23]

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Banks and investment funds both have a positive role to play in providing financial services within the economy and wider society and can complement each other in this regard.

Ireland, like our partners in the EU, will require significant funding into the future to address strategic priorities. In this regard the EU Capital Markets Union initiative - which aims to get investment and savings flowing across all member states for the benefit of citizens, businesses and investors - stresses the importance of additional and alternative funding opportunities within the EU. This greater diversification of financing sources will reduce the current level of reliance on bank funding, increase private risk sharing within the single market, and is intended to make the EU’s financial system more stable as a result, thereby unlocking additional funding for economic activity in Europe.