Benefits hit by payment delay

TENS of thousands of welfare claimants suffered delays in receiving disability and illness payments to their bank accounts yesterday due to a glitch.

As many as 73,600 people did not get their payments in their accounts in time. Of these, 65,000 were disability and illness benefit recipients.

The Department of Social Protection said 53,000 claimants were paid by yesterday afternoon and that the remainder should get their money today.

A statement from the department apologised to those affected.

It said: ‘Any customer experiencing difficulties as a result of this may contact their local community welfare service of the department for assistance.’

A spokesman for Enable Ireland said: ‘People do have expectations of when they are going to be paid and many have direct debits that have to be met. It is unfortunate this happened.’