Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The bank's information technology, IT, system is in a shambles. The Minister for Finance told us in response to my questions that its IT shambles is the reason Ulster Bank is not able to repay customers it wrongly took money from. I asked the Governor of the Central Bank, Philip Lane, is it the case that Ulster Bank's IT system is so bad that this is the problem and he said yes that is the case. The bank's IT system had a glitch which locked its customers out of basic banking services for weeks on end.

The bank paid a dividend two days ago of €1.5 billion to its parent group at the same time that its IT systems are in such a shambles that it cannot pay back money it took wrongly from customers' accounts over a year later. Would it not fit it better to tell NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland, RBS, no, actually we are not paying a dividend, we have a duty and responsibility of care to our customers here in Ireland and we will invest that to make sure this will never happen again and that we have robust systems?