Kilkenny TD defends public right to use cash services

Fianna Fáil TD for Carlow-Kilkenny, John McGuinness has welcomed the Government’s publication of a bill which aims to ensure sufficient and effective access to cash is available across the country.

The Finance (Provision of Access to Cash Infrastructure) Bill 2024 was approved by Cabinet last month.

"Moving to a cashless society is not something that the general public want, they want the option to use cash whenever they feel like it," Mr McGuinness told the Kilkenny People.

“The bill now being introduced will ensure that banks are now obliged to make cash available and to make the different notes available in the cash machines to facilitate all sorts of customers not just ones who withdraw €50 notes at a time, we need to see all notes in there,” he added.

In July 2022, AIB announced they intended to go entirely cashless at 70 branches across the country, removing cash and cheque services from those branches by October of that year. However, the Irish bank put a halt to the proposed changes just days after the announcement following widespread public criticism.

Mr McGuinness like many other public representatives at council and government levels disapproved of such changes due to the challenges it would present for many small businesses and members of the public, not least the elderly.

The Carlow-Kilkenny TD, first elected to the Dáil in 1997, believes any future changes must not leave certain parts of society behind.

"We saw recently the worldwide outage of technology, the difficulties it can cause for everyone, and so having a cashless society only is not a good idea as it’s open to all sorts of fraud," he claimed.

"Yes, the option should be there (to use card facilities) but we have to think of those who are not IT literate, those who are marginalised in one way or another and the elderly that just doesn’t use technology," the Kilkenny based TD stated.

"More and more small businesses are asking people to consider paying them in cash because their subject to fees so if it was a cashless society and the banks had total control, they would increase their charges I’m sure," the local TD said.

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"We can’t leave the market open to that type of carry on because the banks are beyond greedy and are now making a €1 billion in profits every six months, so what do we do, make them richer? I don’t think so," McGuinness added.

"We need to focus on what the citizen wants, on what society wants and what is best for society, not what is best for the banks. They have proven to have systems that are prone to failure," he said.

As the banking landscape continually changes and advances, Mr McGuinness hopes the legislation which will follow this bill will be reviewed regularly and the public’s welfare will be prioritised over the bank’s.