Gerald Nash (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I refer to the cost of the verification process in the Department. I have obtained information from the Mirroron foot of a freedom of information request on the response from the Department to a journalist last November. It stated the initial costs associated with producing the public services card were €18.284 million, ex-VAT, and that a further €1.5 million in costs were related to other aspects of the project. The sum of €18.284 million allowed for a figure of €347,000 towards the cost of the operation of a help desk facility to support the issuing of the public services card. It went on to state that, subsequent to the overall contract being put in place, the then Data Protection Commissioner had requested that specific control measures be put in place to ensure that it coul be verified that the public services card had been sent to and received by the correct person. This resulted in customers, on receipt of their public services card, being required to make contact by telephone with the Department to confirm receipt. Essentially, the customer contacted a telephone line and the telephone line staff member recorded the fact that the public services card had been received. Although this process became known as activation, it did not result in anything being done to the public services card or the system and cards were not invalidated if no such call was made. The response went on to state that it was important, therefore, to note that all public services cards issued by the Department were valid and could be used with or without activation. The departmental official went on to say the telephone line had received approximately 1.385 million calls, at a cost of €2.47 million, up until August 2016 when the service was discontinued.

I have a number of questions. Originally, €347,000 was allocated for the operation of a hotline by then Department of Social Protection staff. It is good practice for people to be advised how they might go about going through the process of obtaining a public services card and for the Department to address their concerns. Because of the intervention of the Data Protection Commissioner, it appears that a new system was set up which appeare to be a hotline to nowhere. Some 1.4 million people contacted the help desk to activate their public services card, even though activation was not required, but many who have the card did not contact the hotline. This did not make any difference whatsoever because the cards were valid, as the Department made clear in its letter in November.

Is Mr. Duggan claiming a 100% success rate? Does everybody who is meant to have the public services card have the correct one? Are there thousands of people walking around with incorrect cards in their pockets? If there was no requirement to activate the card, as one would with a debit or a credit card from a financial institution, what was the point in spending an additional €2 million, over and above the original sum of €347,000, on a hotline to nowhere? I do not understand it. Why was this money spent if there was no activation process and no cards were invalidated? People were not required to contact the Department to validate their public services card.