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Thousands left without welfare payments after system crash causes delay

A European payments system crash left thousands of people without vital payments.

People who receive social-welfare payments, such as child benefit and farm assist, found there were no funds in their accounts yesterday morning.

An industry-wide issue affected European payments across a number of banks.

People whose payments were due to be paid into accounts in Ulster Bank, Permanent TSB, EBS and An Post were left without money.

The issue was resolved later in the day and frantic efforts were made to credit accounts yesterday afternoon.

People who receive their payments over the counter in a post office were not affected.

Among the payments that were affected were disability allowance, the household benefit package, deserted wives payment, working family payment, jobseeker’s payment, injury benefit and farm assist.

However, weekly State pensions payments were not affected.

“The children’s allowance and social welfare payment due to be paid into the bank in the morning were not there, which has left me and my family of six with 33 cent in the bank,” one concerned mother said.

It is just the latest payments glitch to affect consumers. Just weeks ago, Ulster Bank had another payments issue.

A spokesperson for the Department of Social Protection said a bank payments issue affected European payments, which delayed some social welfare payments due to be paid into customer bank accounts.

“The department can confirm that it processed all its payments as usual.”

AIB and Bank of Ireland account holders said they were not affected the payments breakdown.

Later in the day, the Banking and Payments Federation Ireland said that payments processing had recommenced and all customers were due to receive payments to their accounts.

Article Source: http://tinyurl.com/kbwqb42