"Free banking" was a gimmick, and a very stupid one. Complete "shot in own foot" by the banks, and it did immense damage. Retail banking is an expensive service to maintain. Offering it free of charge has resulted in savage cuts to the retail bank presence across the country, chronic underinvestment in banking infrastructure and a huge deterioration in the serve being provided to customers. Unfortunately when you make an offer like that available, it's very difficult to withdraw it. We did see a return of modest fees over recent years, when the banks' backs were to the wall because of the low interest rates. Sadly, the market has now diminished to the point where it's easy for the banks to operate a de facto cartel, which is why they were able to ramp up borrowing rates, freeze deposit rates and maintain charges. Thankfully the long overdue move by the NTMA together with a lot of bad publicity has forced the banks hand and resulted in a positive move on deposit interest rates, though this was very much a marketing exercise as the rates applying to the bulk of deposits are still ridiculously low by European standards. To return to the topic of the thread, there was no justification whatsoever for keeping rates low, and it's still very difficult to justify the current rates. Unfortunately there is nobody who can represent the interests of depositors against the powerful vested interests.