Aer Lingus has received 6,500 compensation applications from customers affected by last month's IT problem that led to the cancellation of 51 flights.

More than 30,000 Aer Lingus passengers were affected by the disruption, sparked by an "exceptional set of circumstances".

The airline was forced to cancel dozens of flights between Dublin and other European destinations after its check-in and boarding services were disrupted.

Senior representatives from Aer Lingus appeared before the Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications.

Aer Lingus chief executive Lynne Embleton said that, for almost ten hours, the airline had no access to its operational and customer system.

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"This meant we couldn't check in, we couldn't board customers, we couldn't get access to flight information or customer bookings data or customer data information," she said.

Donal Moriarty, chief corporate affairs officer, said its cloud system is in the UK. He told the committee: "The fibre optic line was broken due to construction work at a site in the UK.

"The secondary line, which is the back-up, also failed due to an entirely unrelated issue of a failure of back-up card."