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Labour room built for less medicalised births cost €100,000 but rarely used
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File photo of customers queuing for an Ulster Bank ATM. Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland
Ulster Bank
Ulster Bank says 'normal service resumed' for most customers
Banking group Royal Bank of Scotland said the cost of cleaning up the Ulster Bank technical ‘glitch’ – including redress to customers – would cost stg£28m (€35.5m).
ULSTER BANK HAS said that there are outstanding issues with only a “minimal” number of customers’ accounts following the summer’s massive systems failure.
TheJournal.ie was told by a spokesperson that “any outstanding reconciliation to customer accounts are minimal”. Ulster Bank says that “normal service has now been restored for the majority of our customers”.
When asked when all issues would be totally resolved for customers, Ulster Bank could not put a definite timeframe on it but pointed TheJournal.ie to a previous statement which they say still applies. That statement said:
Given the scale of the incident, the clean up continues and a small percentage of outstanding transactions are being processed over the next couple of days. There is no doubt that there will be reconciliations to some customer accounts that also need to take place over the coming days and weeks. However, for the majority of customers it is now business as usual.
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An interim report from RBS yesterday said that the overall “systems failure” in parent company RBS which saw Ulster Bank customers left without access to their accounts for weeks was a “significant blot” on the company’s reputation. It said that stg£125m had been set aside to deal with all costs associated with that failure. Some stg£28m (€35.5m) of that will be directed towards the “clean-up” of the Ulster Bank issues.
In its report, RBS admitted that while its customers in the Royal Bank of Scotland had their issues dealt with in a speedy manner, Ulster Bank customers “experienced extended problems with their accounts”.
Some Ulster Bank customers left comments on yesterday’s report, indicating that they are among those still suffering the impact of the “systems failure”. One commenter, “fotocrat”, wrote:
My account is actually overdrawn due to Inaccuracies and inadvertent withdrawal of money. There was so much confusion. Now am owing the bank. Won’t get my account up to date with a positive balance until I hear from the ombudsman’s office or the bank.
Already sent in my complaint form to both, Ulster Bank and the Financial Ombudsman. I am seeking redress and hopefully I’ll be sorted soon.
Another, “reds”, wrote:
Me too, my wages have been changed to a different account but direct debits are still coming out of my old one, so a negative balance with me owing them money now. Very stressful not knowing where you stand.
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My income tax would be lower if Apple actually paid their full 12 1/2℅ tax. Well, unless our gangsters in the Dail give it to our Rothschild/private bond holders.
Unless he gets one, then there could be the perfect storm. The Journal ‘towers’ would explode in orgy of ctrl-c ctrl-v, it would be like something from an Hieronymus Bosch painting
Silly story! If you compared the profits of most successful companies towards their total staff and apply the figures through a per capita rating, you’d get similar results. All the same, maybe the might loan us a few bob…
Hush, John. It’s the start of Apple season on the Journal, expect blanket coverage, and incendiary articles, until the launch of the iPhone 6 in September.
Apples profits are based on semi slave labour – and not something to boast about .
Many are made in Chian at Foxconn factories
”On June 14th, a Foxconn worker jumped to his death from his apartment building in Chengdu, marking the 18th reported worker suicide at Foxconn factories in China in just over two years[1]. Many additional suicides may have gone unreported[2][3]. But these deaths and the focus on conditions at Foxconn reflect only a portion of the troubling conditions at Apple suppliers.
This investigation of other Apple suppliers in China reveals that serious work-related injuries and worker suicides are by no means isolated to just Foxconn but exist throughout Apple’s supply chain. For example, we found that at least two workers committed suicide at Flextronics[4]’ factories last year[5][6] (Ganzhou and Zhuhai) and that upwards of 59 workers were injured in explosions at Riteng’s Shanghai factory last December[7] (both are Apple’s suppliers). More broadly, this investigation of ten different Apple factories in China finds that harmful, damaging work environments characterized by illegally long hours for low levels of pay are widespread in Apple’s supply, with working conditions frequently worse at suppliers other than Foxconn. We also document for the first time the tremendous problems caused by the use of ‘labour dispatching’ by Apple suppliers in China…
This is Bangladesh all over again – low wages – long hours – and the author of this report has nerve to compare the profits with Bangladesh where their have been tragedies and many deaths as well – and again western suppliers take no responsibility – despite their claims – for the hours and wages that workers have to put up with
- Oh and this is the direction in which we are headed – the race to the bottom – Yes – great news .
We should be boycotting these products .
Lot of talk about boycotting Israeli products – seems an easy target – but the things we use ourselves ??
Number of suicides in Foxconn factories (according to your story above, not attributed anywhere): 18 in two years out of a total workforce of over 1 million. That gives a rate of 0.9 suicides per 100,000 per year.
This is old news and has been discussed in great depth many times over. Apple has been the focus of such stories, as its iPhone is the top selling smartphone brand. As a result, it has been at the forefront in trying to improve conditions for workers. It has been working with the Fair Labor Association (www.fairlabor.org) to audit its facilities in the China supply chain. There are still challenges to be met, and it isn’t just Apple who can solve them. It’s a problem that affects the entire consumer electronics industry. So if you buy an iPhone or a Samsung phone or whatever brand of smartphone, chances are it will have come through the Chinese supply chain.
apple, like many large american corporations, would, under American tax laws, be liable to taxation when they repatriate profits back into the USA. This is unfair as thru have already paid tax at source in the country where the profit was made. Why should they pay tax twice. They have a duty to their shareholders to maximise profit legitimately.
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