Mattie McGrath criticises banks and warns against cashless shift

I want to thank all my colleagues and their supporters and David and everyone else for putting this motion together. Minister, I would prefer that you stuck to the motion rather than using your time. What are you very arguing to do today, Minister? Yes, true to share. Trusting on to who? Does that have tangible issues in the motion? We don't have a lot of time, but rather than choosing to attack another party for political pints, there is plenty of work to do in this. I want to also welcome Richard O'Donoghue from Kilworth and Cork, who is in the gallery today, who has done a huge, the business gallery, doing huge work here, and has actually stood up and was counted in vineyards where they refuse to take cash. I want to correct you, Minister. I don't believe you are right when you are saying that if people put up a post or an order saying cash is not acceptable, that they are legally covered or not. The European Commission issued a document saying that that has no bearing. We use Europe as cover when we want to, and we ignore them when we don't want to. So the motion here today is quite straightforward. The non-use of cash is discriminatory, and it is totally discriminatory against people with intellectual disabilities, elderly people, indeed in the New Yorker, and the poor in society, and indeed our newest arrivals, refugees. They can't open a bank account or anything else. So we are all lovely platitudes talking about all these inclusive acts we do, and we allow our banks. There is some kind of amnesia in government, and the previous government, and the one I was in too, when we had the bank crash. An amnesia and some kind of aesthetics we get when dealing with banks, we stand back and honour them. The bank managers, yes, in the past they had great respect in the community, and rightly so. But people knew the bank managers, and they knew the people, and they trust, and that was there. And they knew who to help out, and who to trust, to give loans, and everything else. All that connectivity is gone. You can't find a bank manager. You can't find a teller in a bank now. And I support the staff always in the banks that are there under duress, and they get the brunt of it when you meet machine after machine after machine after machine, like robots. They don't want the customers. We saw what AIB did. The arrogance of them to do what they did last year, in spite of the fact that we are every man, woman and child, and children unborn, and will be born for our grandchildren, to pay back the horrible mess that they left us in. And the bailout they got here, a blank cheque that they got from us. And this is the thanks. Because your governments are an option. And it proved to be here today, and no disrespect to yourself for one minute, or the previous minister, Alice Starr, Smith. Carwell and talk to Arrigan. Carwell and Michal McCraw. Carwell and talk to Michal McCraw. And talk to Pascal Dullochore. Where are they? If it's so serious about this, and thanks to every group that spoke here, supporting their motion, and Labour missed the slight and dead national approach, means that they're supporting it also. So, unanimously, the House supporting this motion, you're supporting the motion, but you don't want to do it with the motion always. When you don't want to be a palatable vote down something, you'll take it, and you'll fold it into a folder, and you'll file it away, and you'll put more folders on top of it, and you'll put more on top of it, and it'll be in the 10-year file then. I want from you today dates, timelines, for legislation. You'll talk about the second half of 2023, and maybe we'll get something in 2024. We can't wait that long, because the whole thing has been harvested up, and people's cash reserves, and peace and patience, and resilience, and above all, a support for the people that you are elected, and I'm elected, and we're all elected, to represent our people. Not to be driving them literally off the face of a cliff. Because many people, as I said, and not all elderly, lots of elderly people are way more proficient on electronic communication than I am. But as I named the people, the homeless, the vulnerable, and you've seen hospitals now, no more cash accepted here after the 1st of January. You can't get your cadunus to drive on the road. NDLS centres, so it's happening. So a little is push, push, push, push. And we know that up to 3.5% is taken from every time the small business uses a cash card, or somebody, a customer uses a cash card, up to 3.5% is taken out of their business. Goodness knows it's hard enough to keep the doors open in the business at the moment, with the ESB and the oil companies, which I won't defend either. I don't know what's got into the political system in this country. When we celebrate 100 years of the death of the likes of Liam Lynch, and Michael Collins, and the Valley City Motors, and everything else, and we go around paying homage to what they did, and we have allowed our people to be downtrodden and to be crucified with big corporations. And the liberal corporation is big and beautiful. And we saw last week the bill to have copper sections in the credit unions. We need to support our people. Under the constitution of Burnock and the Hain, that is our solemn duty here, to serve the people who elect us. But we need less than that, and we need tutorials put on here again, to remind government of what their responsibilities are. Because they love trotting out to Europe. They'll trotting all over the world now. Not trotting, but flying for Paddy's Day. This is the biggest exit since the famine. God help me in that perilous situation to make no comparison. But, my God, Minister, I can't keep up with the places he's going. Someone said yesterday he's hiring an advisor to advise an advisor. He'd need them to be ahead of them, to be behind them, to be with them. And all on the one road, the boho de rog. And no carbon tax. And we are here, little minions, pay up and shut up. So, Minister, the GAA, Cumberland New Criscale, played a huge part in our... It was founded in one of our own hometowns in Tipperdon, Dolezela. So many years ago. And the ideas that those men had. And now we have... I can't believe that one of the first big organizations, or national organizations, to go cashless. It is shameful of them. And I have written to them a number of times, the chief executive, or the all-stuwer whore, and indeed the county chairman, but do they even get an acknowledgement? No. They've gone so big now, and so embedded with the government, and so nodding, and do what we want, that they want to think they can treat their loyal supporters. And then the other clubs and organizations are thinking they're going the same way, and others are. I think it's shameful. I think it's shameful. I have a couple of two in particular. Sogat Poroshtar retired. They're assistant pastors now. They're great work. Excellent hurlers on the field. I wouldn't like to have been against that even playing hurlers, because they pulled on the ground and pulled on the ball, and they were great hurlers. They gave great service to their clubs, their county, and loved to go to matches. They haven't been in a match for 18 months since this carry-on came in, because they don't have anybody. They live alone, you know. They don't have families, and they don't have people to help them, and their embarrassment is above anything else. You can go. Someone else will buy a ticket for you. Did you ever see the bait of it? I remember years ago, we were going to dance for a tenor, and we might have the tenor, and we might have the tenor, and we might say to someone, past any chance to have a crown, to make up the tenor. I'm embarrassed. But now, for a grown man, pensioner, in the late 70s, to ask someone else to buy them a ticket. The cash in Sapoka. I was in Stormont the weekend. I was in Belfast the weekend, and they have done things to protect their cash up there. So have Denmark. But why are we a bit laggards and everything else that's good for our people here? You're talking about legislation that you might introduce. We haven't seen the heads of it. We haven't seen any draft guidelines. We haven't seen any discussion for committees to put their teeth into. So why the delay? Are we complicit in the removal of cash, your government? I think you are, by delaying and subvertage and everything else, and the fatigue you suffer? I think you are. I can't come to any other conclusion. Okay, we'll accept the rule of independence motion, a great motion, and we'll speak in favour, and we'll have a kick of Sinn Féin about cash and political scores in the middle of it, and did not even use all your tenor made to answer the question. Indeed, it's a very salient, important piece that are in here. So, Minister, as we know, the financial, the visa cashless challenge that was announced in 2017 by the Visa cards, and then we had another one with the cashless journey as well, MasterCard. So we're adoring to these now, visas and MasterCard and everything else. And it saddens me. I'm not antiquated or backward-looking, and I use cards as well. But I see it in the Ineoga, and they're being indoctrinated into card, card, card, card, card. Whether it's for a bar of chocolate, whether it's for a cocktail or mineral or a cup of coffee, red nails. And the control element as in all that is my big fear, because when they go to get a mortgage, and when they go to get any kind of unwanted bank, if they can find a bank that's open, and if they can find a manager that will talk to them, because they can't, it's like in quizzes now, in question times now they'll have a question, where's the bank in Talmel? Can someone say, where's the bank in cash? They'll be there. Because they intend abandoning the people totally. They're well underway, and they don't care about governments, because governments are complicit. Because they're proving today that the Minister for Finance, Michael McGrath, on the card, Reeve, and his absence, and indeed the Minister for Public Expenditure. I said, no disrespect to you, wouldn't even come in to debate this motion, that everybody in this chamber, every group, thought it was important. So, that's some signal to the banks. The signal is, they're not going to wink, and away you go, lads, and charge what you like. Inter rates are going up again, as we know, this week, or tomorrow, or after. And we see this pressure, and we see the devastation they left after people, bringing them to the courts, and bringing them to evictions, and everything else. And here we are, on a merry way here, to cashless society. While I'll be alive, I have nine grandchildren, thank God, and one every day on the way, the corner of the day. And I'd love to give them a few bobcats, and every grandparents, and every child, or first commune, or whatever else. The person they don't want to give someone a tip, whether the lorry driver is doing a delivery, or whether it's someone bringing home the turf, when you're left bringing home the turf, you've got a large bottle, and you've got a fibre of a tip, and everybody's happy, and the turf was home, and ready for the winter. So, I beg your indulgence, and I got here. Look, I want to see action. I want to see a prescriptive timeline, of when you're going to introduce heads of the bill, when you're going to introduce it to pre-legislative the bill, when you're going to introduce it to pre-legislative scrutiny, and when we'll be there to this floor. And it can't be up never, never. If you're going to go back in 2023, and maybe you'll go out in 2024, I know you'll be out of government then. It'll be over to someone else, to mind all the cash to have, as you said. So, I commend this motion, and it's a pity that you wouldn't have the guts to stand up and oppose it, rather than have it lying down, and getting dust in some shelf. That can't happen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.