“The silence from the senior management team of Ulster Bank has been deafening. The way they have handled this crisis has been to run and hide and hope it all goes away. With news this morning that the bank may not have this issue fully resolved until the end of the week, it is high time they step up to the mark and do the job that they are being paid very well to do, instead of leaving it to the Irish Payments Services Organisation to update the public. Its parent company, NatWest, has been more forthcoming in the UK than Ulster Bank has been here.

“If it is going to take until the end of the week before this issue will be resolved, then how is the bank planning to deal with the customers who are due their monthly salaries this week? And how are they planning to deal with social welfare payments? There also clearly needs to be greater co-ordination between all of the banks. Ulster Bank was the only bank open this weekend, so customers whose employers and state bodies who use Ulster Bank as a clearing bank had nowhere to go when their salaries were not paid.

“There a number of questions that must be asked as to how this serious issue happened in the first place and why there was no roll back plan to prevent such a disaster.

I am calling on the senior management team to be honest and forthcoming with answers to the many questions people have.”