Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The Retail Banking Review, published by my Department in November 2022, concluded that cash, despite a decline in its usage, 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 regulated.

Accordingly, relevant provisions for ATM operators, both those connected to a commercial bank and independent ATMs (IADs) will feature in the Access to Cash legislation.

Work is well underway by officials in my Department on this important piece of legislation and Heads will be brought 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.

It should also be noted that the European Commission published a proposal for a Payment Services Directive 3 and Payment Services Regulation which will bring in new requirements for the regulation of ATM operators, including IADs, across all member states. It is expected that the Access to Cash legislation will be consistent with this EU legislation.