Ulster Bank chief ‘must accept blame’

There have been calls for the head of Ulster Bank to resign after the bank was unable to process routine financial transactions or release funds for a third week.

A failure of bank’s computers has caused severe disruption to the lives of up to half a million of its customers, in both the Six and 26 Counties.

It has also caused disruption to customers of other banks and to the general public.

Salary payments, mortgage payments, social welfare and children’s allowance payments all continue to be affected by the delays, and some customers have experienced hardship as a result.

Customers’ credit ratings have also been affected as a result of the payment backlog.

Queues of people were visible throughout the week at some branches, which were kept open on Saturday and Sunday to deal with worried customers.

Sinn Fein’s Pearse Doherty called on CEO John Brown, “to accept responsibility for the failure in the Bank, to accept that the buck stops with him and when the mess is cleared up to consider his position and resign”.

The Donegal South West deputy said he found it “unbelievable and unacceptable” that the backlog caused by the system failure will not be cleared for another two weeks is both unbelievable and unacceptable.

He was speaking at a meeting of the Finance Committee of the 26-County parliament in Dublin, where Brown was summoned to explain the systemic collapse of the bank’s operations.

“While Mr Brown accepted responsibility for what went on at Ulster Bank it was far from clear that he was accepting responsibility for the ongoing chaos. It is also completely unacceptable that he refused to rule out accepting a bonus this year.”

Urgent Appeal