Bank closures 'penalise' rural communities, says farming group

THE decision of Bank of Ireland to implement a programme of mass closure of branches - including four in Westmeath - will have the nett effect of penalising rural areas and the elderly.

President of the ICMSA, Pat McCormack, said the bank’s decision was effectively an announcement that it is abandoning physical person-to-person business in large areas of the state and the reality is that rural towns - already struggling - will be disproportionately hit.

Mrc McCormack said that the retreat by state services and commercial services from rural areas now seemed relentless and their disappearance from the ordinary day-to-day lives of rural communities inevitably meant reduced economic activity, with fewer and fewer opportunities for people to meet and interact in the normal way. This, he said, was undoubtedly contributing to increasing levels of loneliness and sense of isolation.

He said we need to examine the service levels provided by our banks in rural areas and to start to supporting the financial institutions that show a commitment to servicing rural areas - the remaining post office network and rural credit unions.

Mr McCormack said the ICMSA believe it is time that those institutions were authorised and supervised in offering the full range of banking and financial services at competitive interest rates to the rural populations now being abandoned by the companies that had been offering those services for generations.