Shane McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)

Deputies Doherty and Michael McGrath have made relevant points. I always believed something like this would happen. Banks no longer provider a personal service: everything has been computerised. As stated by the Deputies, there is no doubt but that this could happen again. I agree with them that we should call in the relevant people to explain what happened and that many people are under pressure owing to the slowness of the bank to address the problem. While I cannot respond to all of the Deputies' questions now, I will ensure they are responded to in a written reply. This was bound to happen at some stage. Perhaps now the banks will return to employing counter staff rather than relying on computers.

This issue has been ongoing since last week and must be resolved as a matter of priority. Ulster Bank, as part of the RBS group, last week experienced severe technical problems triggered by a software update late on Tuesday 19 June, which caused the RBS group's computer system to fail. As a result, payments going into and out of accounts overnight were not processed, causing a huge backlog across RBS and NatWest branches and subsidiaries, including Ulster Bank. The outage also created some technical instability in the system which exacerbated the problem and caused further delays. An initial attempt to provide a "patch" to the system last Thursday, 21 June failed. This amplified the backlog issue and led to further delays across the Ulster Bank system.

The EMC met separately with Ulster Bank to discuss its current problems. Ulster Bank's chief executive assured the EMC that resolution of this problem is its top priority. He also set out the measures that the bank is taking to assist customers, including the extension of bank opening hours to assist customers to transact their business; the addition of 100 staff to their telephone assistance lines; increased discretion of branch managers to pay out funds to customers so as to ensure they have access to pay and social welfare and the transfer of temporary additional staff from RBS Group in the UK to Ireland to assist in clearing the backlog.

The Minister for Finance, the Department of Finance and the Central Bank are receiving regular status updates from Ulster Bank. Management at Ulster Bank have stated that no customer, including customers of other banks, will be out of pocket as a result of this issue. We know that they will keep to their word and ensure that this will be the case for all Irish customers. We will hold them to that. Once its systems are up and running, the bank will commence the process of refunding customers any interest, fees or charges that have occurred as a result of this incident.

The Minister, Deputy Burton, has obtained assurances from Ulster Bank that it is taking measures to minimise the impact on customers who have been experiencing delays in receiving their social welfare and other payments from the bank. We expect Ulster Bank to ensure that the impact of delays for elderly or more vulnerable customers is addressed and that flexible arrangements are guaranteed by it during this period.

The basic systems failure has now being rectified. However, there is still a considerable backlog which the Ulster Bank needs to remedy. We have been told this work will continue around the clock until this weekend. Ulster Bank, as part of the RBS group, operates on a commercial basis, at arm's length from the State but where systemic failures occur there are steps that need to be taken by the institution to ensure they are not repeated. Obviously, there are issues around its IT infrastructure. I note that the Governor of the Bank of England, Mr. Mervyn King, has suggested that the FSA should investigate the cause of the system failure at RBS.

For members of the public specifically, the technical problems led to what the Ulster Bank management have accepted as "unacceptable delays" in relation to three core functions, namely, payroll processing, branch batch payments and payment of direct debits and credits. Ulster Bank intends to have the payroll processing rectified by today and has secured support from AIB on batch processing. The bank will continue its work on the issue of direct debits and credits throughout the next few days. Ulster Bank ATMs remain available for use. We expect the backlogs to be cleared as soon as possible to ensure that Ulster Bank customers and other affected customers have correct balances in their accounts. Other Irish banks have sought to provide technical support to Ulster Bank while it works through this process to minimise the effects across the Irish banking system. We are glad that this has largely been achieved. The Central Bank is in constant touch with Ulster Bank. Management at Ulster Bank have been told to ensure that there are sufficient levels of information and constant communication with their customers and the public.

We sympathise with the disruption to Ulster Bank customers and appreciate the efforts of staff at the bank in terms of trying to support customers. However, we expect a rapid rectification of this situation and an assurance that the IT issues will be comprehensively addressed.

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