Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

I also welcome the opportunity to raise this issue. One of the most disappointing aspects for customers who have been affected is that the goalposts seem to keep changing as to when this crisis will be resolved. It was initially meant to be Monday this week, then it was to be fully resolved by the beginning of next week, yet there seems to have been a change in that position as well. We are now being told that the majority of accounts will be updated by next week.

It is disturbing, to say the least, that the disaster recovery plan the bank is obliged to have in place, as all banks are, clearly did not work in this case. It raises some fundamental issues. The Central Bank was asleep for the first few days of this crisis. This first emerged on Tuesday evening last week but there was no statement from the Central Bank until Sunday. The Cental Bank then updated its statement on Monday of this week. We have not heard enough from the Central Bank and do not know exactly what it is doing.

The absolute priority is, of course, for Ulster Bank to get its systems up to date and for normal services to resume for its customers. I acknowledge and praise the work of ordinary branch staff around the country who are accommodating customers under very difficult circumstances. What we need is a comprehensive investigation by the Central Bank into what happened, how it is being handled and the systems in place at Ulster Bank. Also, the Central Bank should rigorously test the contingency plans of all banks providing services to Irish customers. This needs to be done. It is not enough for the Central Bank to ask the banks to review their systems. The Central Bank, as the regulator and consumer watchdog, needs to rigorously test all of the systems in the banks here. We cannot afford something like this happening again.

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