Politicians step up pressure on Government to intervene on bank closures

Labour Party finance spokesperson Ged Nash said AIB's decision to cut eight branches in the North must be 'strongly condemned' and cannot lead to a wider campaign of AIB branch closures across the entire island of Ireland. File picture

The Government has been urged to intervene and do more to block the State-supported banks from closing branches.

The call for State intervention comes as AIB – which is still 71% owned by the Government – announced its intention to more than halve the number of its bank branches in the North.

The bank is to cut eight branches in November, lowering its number of branches in the North from 15 to seven.

AIB said the move follows a strategic review of its operations in the North and is due to a 33% reduction in customers in its physical banks and a 52% increase in digital banking customers.

Labour Party finance spokesperson Ged Nash said the decision must be “strongly condemned” and cannot lead to a wider campaign of AIB branch closures across the entire island of Ireland.

'Unjustifiable closures'

“The majority State-owned AIB must make their intentions clear and reassure staff and customers that they will not follow Bank of Ireland with a frenzy of unjustifiable closures,” he said.

“The Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe must quickly put any uncertainty to bed. He should use his leverage as the major shareholder and publicly call on AIB to, at least, pause any consideration of branch closures until such time as the banking review, which he says he is committed to undertaking has been completed,” Mr Nash said.

The Department of Finance said commercial decisions are a matter for the individual banks.

John O’Connell – the head of bank workers’ representative the Financial Services Union – labelled AIB’s latest move as “scandalous”.

“Only a week ago the Finance Committee of the Northern Ireland Assembly passed a motion calling on all banks to pause any branch closures until society and the economy had recovered from Covid-19,” he said.