Abandoned by Bank of Ireland!

This morning an article (Irish) in the on-line publication Tuairisc.ie reports yet another retrograde step in the service provided by the Bank of Ireland to its customers.

There have been many accounts in the media of their unwillingness to deal face to face with customers wishing to withdraw money at their branches. Now it appears that in replacing their ATM machines they are discontinuing the linguistic choices available on these machines. From now on these will be monolingual.

According to the article this means that the only ATMs remaining to recognise the National Language (no matter how low the apparent demand) are those in the Applegreen petrol stations. These have no connection with the Bank of Ireland.

Bank of Ireland have stated that only about 1% of users use the Irish language facility but state they are unable to say in what parts of the country are the highest users.

There are four of these that I use frequently (two or three times per month) which are deep in the Gaeltacht and now it appears that the policy of the Bank of Ireland is to deny the people of my area - and any Gaeltacht area - to use their facilities in their own language.

I look forward to the time when the Central Bank authorises our local Credit Union to issue cheque books and other banking services so I can move my own monies fully to its care.

I'm sure some of the Language organisations have accounts with the Bank of Ireland. I wonder how many will use the muscle to advise the bank, and indeed other Banks, of their opinions in this matter

#Gaeilge @bankofireland @ceartateanga