Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

On a related matter, my contribution relates to general procurement and the e-Government process. When Ms Josephine Feehily appeared before the committee recently to consider how the local property charge was being paid, it was very evident that over half the people now paying the charge are doing so by means of a debit or credit card payment. That is a massive success with regard to people engaging with electronic systems, although difficulties arose with how the payment was scheduled. It showed intent as to how people will engage with Government services. People would fill in a medical card application if they were to go down that route.

The half-year local property charge payment for the 2013 was approximately €250 million, so we are talking about a figure of €500 million next year. From the discussion with Ms Feehily, it appears the merchant agreement for the credit card payment is 1.25%, which is very high. Following from this, I wrote a series of parliamentary questions to all Departments, asking them for the merchant agreement sum they have agreed; the lowest rate seems to be 0.5%, with the highest rate in excess of 2.5%. The sums are different for Departments as some deal with very small credit card costs, whereas others see quite significant sums processed. The biggest sum - almost on a par with the local property charge - is traditional motor tax and vehicle registration, with almost €500,000 in income there. The credit card merchant agreement in that case is 0.5%, with a debit card charge of 26 cent per card transaction. The net sum is €3 million for the Department. I do not know the percentage of people making payments with cards but the proportion is probably similar to the local property charge, meaning there is another €3 million for the local property tax, etc.

Credit card payments are being made to the cost of several million euro and the merchant agreement seems to differ with every Department. Perhaps that is a legacy issue. Is there a possibility that we could arrive at one merchant agreement? Industry representatives have told me that if the public service online payment facility was tendered as a single unit, the rate would be well under 0.5% as there is such a significant sum of money involved. Could that be considered? I would be grateful if given an ongoing progress report as to how the issue develops.