The Access to Cash Bill also gives the Central Bank powers to compel banks, Comment here by Geraldine Comiskey, If they really cared about the elderly they’d encourage them to use credit cards with a suitable limit and appropriate safeguards (banks have dedicated teams monitoring vulnerable people’s transactions). It makes them less vulnerable to mugging and financial abuse in the home, and it’s easier to keep track of spending when you read your monthly bill.

Cash kills people…
Oliver Hayes abducted widow Anne Corcoran from her remote farmhouse, bludgeoned her to death, buried her in a shallow grave – and went on holidays with the cash he had stolen from her bank account.
Christy Hanley was tied to a chair and beaten to death after he had sold his horses.
James Cahillane’s battered body was found in a burning house.
Tommy Casey, Tom Niland, Mary Nolan and many others died as a result of their injuries.
Cash kills freedom…
Elizabeth Gill never left her house again after a drive-by mugging.
Michael McMahon fled his own home and cycled through the night.
Cash kills dignity…
A nephew dragged his dead uncle to the post office to collect his pension, a granddad was beaten in front of his grandson, and young women were pimped.
Cash kills commerce, communities and civilisation.
Spanning thirty years, these stories are about ordinary people’s lives destroyed – for cash. Some were killed for thousands of euro; others for the price of a pint; others still on the false assumption that they had cash.
The purpose of this book is to make the case for the abolition of cash as a currency, on the grounds that the existence of an untraceable currency puts everyone – especially the most vulnerable – at risk of robbery and violence.
Journalist Geraldine Comiskey interviewed some of the victims of crime and their families, trawled the newspaper archives and her own notes going back to her youth as a cub reporter covering the district courts, and followed-up long-forgotten stories to put together this random collection of true stories about brutal crimes, which will remove the rose-tinted lens on our sentimental attachment to cash.
* Includes chapters on the worldwide campaign to keep cash, statistics and tips to protect vulnerable people