Publican pickets bank over disputed draft

A PUBLICAN in Co Carlow has taken the unusual step of picketing his local bank branch in a row over a $155,000 bank draft.

Tom Lennon spent yesterday protesting outside the Carlow town branch of Ulster Bank after efforts to transfer the dollar sum to another bank failed.

He accused the bank of being unhelpful and unco-operative in its dealings with him and threatened to take his protest next week to the bank’s branch in Kilkenny and head offices in Dublin.

“I’m totally frustrated. People need to know the way they are dealing with customers,” said Mr Lennon, who has been a customer of the branch for 12 years.

Mr Lennon, who described himself as a tough but fair businessman, owns a number of pubs in Co Carlow and Co Laois.

The dispute goes back to June, when he sought to withdraw sums of €400,000 and $155,000 from demand deposit accounts in his name at the branch. He claims officials told him they couldn’t give him the money that day but provided no reason for this stance.

The following week, the bank sent him two bank drafts. He lodged the euro sum with the Bank of Ireland but the dollar draft was returned to him unpaid because there was a problem with the numbering on the draft.

Subsequent attempts to resolve the issue failed, prompting Mr Lennon to mount yesterday’s picket.

A spokeswoman for Ulster Bank said while it didn’t comment on the cases of individual customers, in this instance the customer would have received a communication from Bank of Ireland about the draft. He needed to present this to Bank of Ireland before Ulster Bank could obtain clearance to pay the draft.

However, Mr Lennon disputed the bank’s version of events. He said Bank of Ireland had indicated he would have to present a fresh draft in order to transfer his funds.