The bank bailout has to date cost taxpayers €60 billion including interest. The Government has dissolved the bank levy, of which the banks have paid only €1.2 billion. What is happening with Bank of Ireland? Three branches in County Tipperary, in Cahir, Cashel and Templemore, are closing. All over the country, banks are exiting rural Ireland. EBS are leaving Tipperary town and we have seen what is happening with Ulster Bank. When is the Government going to get real? We have a 14% share in Bank of Ireland. Exercise that.

I too heard the Minister this morning, with his feeble words and little tickling, as it were, of what is going on in Davy and elsewhere. The Government is not supporting taxpayers; it is supporting the banks and is in bed with them. It is allowing these closures and the abandonment of rural Ireland to go on week in, week out, and multiple further closures will be coming because the banks get away with it and are not touched by the Government. Why has the Government abolished the banking levy?

Several other Deputies are offering and this is going to impact on others waiting.

The announcement yesterday by Bank of Ireland to close 103 branches throughout the country is a devastating blow to communities that are reeling after many years of cuts by this Government and previous governments to post offices and Garda stations, and this is another damning blow. It is going to suck the life out of the centre of these rural villages. We as taxpayers pump in €4.7 billion to Bank of Ireland. We are major shareholders, at 14%, yet in my constituency of Wicklow, the branches in Tinahely, Carnew and Rathdrum are going to close. As a major shareholder, what is the Government going to do to stand up and protect rural communities, which it has abandoned up to this point?

I ask Members to be brief.

On behalf of the people of Kerry, I raise the way in which Bank of Ireland has treated the people of Castleisland, Killorglin and Tralee, where there is a branch at the institute of technology. These are hard-working customers, people who have been the cornerstone of the banks in those areas, and now they are being abandoned. It is wrong and unfair. The Government should be hauling the banks before it and saying they cannot treat their customers in this way. The next thing will be AIB and all the other banks - we have seen what is happening with Ulster Bank - pulling out and leaving their customers high and dry.

The decision of Bank of Ireland to close 103 of its branches, two of them in Bantry and Dunmanway in my constituency, is a grave error of judgment by the bank. The price that will be paid for this is a weakening of customer loyalty to the bank, and a loss of knowledge to the bank of its individual customers' needs and the unique needs of the communities it serves. Over many years, the Bank of Ireland branches in Bantry and Dunmanway have gained an insightful and valuable profile of these loyal customers. and this healthy symbiotic relationship has thrived to the benefit of both.

Will the Taoiseach step in and force a change of mindset? The Government is the main shareholder in these banks and can intervene if it wants to. It intervened recently in regard to mortgage relief for people.

This issue has been raised in respect of Tipperary. Cahir, Cashel and Templemore are three of the places that will lose out. Templemore will now have no bank and we got word this morning that EBS is pulling out of Tipperary town. The programme for Government makes a big thing out of the rebuilding of rural Ireland. Since the Government took power, it has been destroying rural Ireland. It is time the Taoiseach and the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, intervened here so that local and small businesses will have someone who supports them. EBS pulling out of Tipperary town means that customers of that bank will have to go to Mitchelstown, Nenagh or Clonmel. Where does it stop? We ask that the Taoiseach and the Minister intervene in the closure of these banks.

In County Limerick, seven branches are closing, in Abbeyfeale, Askeaton and Rathkeale in west Limerick, Bruff in east Limerick and three in the city. That leaves five branches in Limerick city and county. It is about time the Government stood up and said enough is enough. We bailed out the banks and now it is time to leave the services there. Three branches in west Limerick, one in east Limerick and three in the city are gone, which leaves five.

In my constituency of Meath West, there are three Bank of Ireland closures, in Athboy, Castlepollard and Enfield. A person can drive from Kells to Mullingar, which is 30 miles, through Athboy, Clonmellon, Delvin, Castlepollard and all the way to Mullingar, before finding a bank. It is very difficult to get businesses set up in these towns if there is not even a bank. Enfield, another town, has grown massively in population, with hundreds of houses approved for it. There are 3,000 or 4,000 people there already and Bank of Ireland is moving out. I ask the Government to intervene to save some of these branches.

I speak on behalf of the people of Dunmanway and Bantry, two towns in my constituency that learned the news on Monday that their Bank of Ireland branches would close. There are two important aspects to this. The first is that there is an elderly population in the towns who rely heavily on attending their local branches to do their banking, and the news that they may have to commute to neighbouring towns such as Clonakilty or Skibbereen is simply not good enough. Second, the two towns rely on footfall and on people coming to their towns to do their banking, with the expenditure that brings with it. They are two important issues we cannot overlook. As a 14% shareholder, we need some intervention from the Government.

I want to ask what the Government is going to do in the constituency of Kildare South. The branches in Monasterevin and Kilcullen are closing and my concern is the elderly there. They cannot commute and do not have the means to do so. They have little hope of getting any banking done following the bank closures.

I thank all the Deputies for raising this issue. I understand and accept the impact these bank closures have on the various towns throughout the country and the implications for the towns concerned, for businesses in the towns and for people in general in doing their banking. The 14% shareholding does not give the Government any role in the running of the banks and that has been the position for quite a long time. The Government does not run the banks, nor is it minded to do so. That said, we are committed to rural Ireland and to looking at alternative ways to support those towns through different Government mechanisms and agencies. We are also committed to seeing what we can do to support the An Post network, not just in the context of its deal with Bank of Ireland but, more broadly speaking, to maintain as much of its network as possible across rural Ireland, and to taking other initiatives for investment in such towns under a range of headings.

We are committed not just to regional development but to rural development in terms of Government funding of a range of initiatives, some of which have been announced already and more of which will be announced in the coming weeks.