Bank of Ireland has apologised to customers of other banks after payments delays left thousands of people without their wages.

The bank says anyone affected by the delay should receive their wages by the end of the day.

The error comes only four weeks after a similar delay left tens of thousands of people waiting an extra day - and in some cases over a bank holiday weekend - to receive their wages.

The issue centres on a 'payments file' which was delayed in being processed by Bank of Ireland.

However this problem has serious knock-on effects, because most Government Departments organise their payroll systems through Bank of Ireland - and are reliant on that bank to make payments promptly.

Today's problem is not as widespread as last time, and customers of Bank of Ireland did themselves receive their wages on time - but customers of AIB, Ulster Bank or Permanent TSB were delayed. 

Affected customers include Gardaí, teachers, nurses, prison wardens, and a range of other civil servants, as well as employees for a number of private companies.

The upside of this being a repeat problem is that the problems can now be rectified more quickly: Bank of Ireland has now passed on the payment instructions to the other banks and all customers should receive their delayed payments before the end of the day.

As a result, there should not be issues regarding late payment fees.

However, there's been some anger at the delay - especially given that it's the second delay in less than a month.

Fine Gael minister Michael Ring says the delay simply isn't fair.

"That's not acceptable. If people are given a job to do, and they're not doing that job properly, that's something that has to be looked at. If your salary is to come today, and is supposed to come today, it should come today. Not tomorrow. 

"If there was a problem there a month ago, that problem should be resolved."