Enda Kenny calls Ulster Bank’s IT disaster unacceptable - 600,000 without service

Ulster Bank management to face Oireachtas inquiry committee on Thursday

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Ulster Bank HQ in Dublin

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In the wake of severe technological difficulties, Ulster Bank is coming under fire from both customers and the government in Ireland. Taoiseach Enda Kenny said on Thursday that the lack of service is “not acceptable.”

Breakingnews.ie reports that the Taoiseach told Galway FM on Thursday, “It's not acceptable in this day and age that people should have to put up with the fears and the anxieties - and the loss of service - that's been there.”

He continued, "Now Ulster Bank are obviously trying to rectify this, but you have to rely on people at the coalface of what went wrong here to fix it, and I hope it's fixed very quickly."

BreakingNews.ie also writes that head of Ulster Bank Jim Brown said, "We won't know the exact number (of customers affected) until we get through processing all the transactions, but I would guesstimate that it would be (around) half of our customer base, which in the Republic is probably 500,000 to 600,000 but we don't know the exact number."

Those figures greatly surpass original estimates of 100,000 customers affected in the wake of the initial June 19 difficulties.

Management from Ulster Bank will face an inquiry committee at the Oireachtas on Thursday afternoon. On Wednesday, Central Bank said at the same committee that the poor service coming from Ulster Bank was "unacceptable and inexcusable.”

Fine Gael TD Peter Matthews, who sits on the committee, said on Thursday that Ulster Bank are “going to get a very pointed interrogation really, because that's what it requires.”

"A bank that accounts for maybe 20 percent of the banking market for customers - whether they're individuals, families or businesses - is a very sizable operation. And to collapse for a period of almost four weeks, effectively, is not acceptable."

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