The Government has published a Bill which aims to ensure that 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 week.

The Bill stems from a recommendation made by the Retail Banking Review, published in November 2022.

It highlighted the continuing importance of cash in ensuring people don't experience financial exclusion and in allowing consumers to budget efficiently.

It also said that cash is needed as a safety net in the event of electronic banking, or the payments infrastructure being impacted by outages or cyber-attacks.

The review called on Department officials to require ATM operators to be authorised and supervised by the Central Bank and to provide the Central Bank with responsibility and powers to protect the resilience of the cash system.

Minister of State for Trade Promotion, Digital and Company Regulation, Dara Calleary says the bill states that a specified percentage of the population must be within no less than 5km and no more than 10km of an ATM, and a cash service point - either a bank branch or post office.

It also states that there must be a specified number of ATMs per 100,000 people.

Minister Calleary says that further attention will need to be given to a county like Mayo which has such a huge geographical spread.

He has been giving more details to Midwest Radio’s Michael D. McAndrew.