Ms Helen Dixon:

The Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection has foreseen that and offers a range of options that can be used as evidence of address, such as official letters from hospitals or other public sector bodies addressed to the individual. Our findings relate to the indefinite and blanket storing of all the supporting documentation. The legislation sets out that the Minister cannot issue a public services card until she is satisfied as to identity. Once the requirements to satisfy identity have been met, there is a question mark over the necessity of retaining all the supporting documentation, particularly in circumstances where, as Deputy Connolly outlined, there is a requirement to renew the card every seven years. However, it is proposed by the Department, despite the fact that further documentation is required to renew the card, that the existing documentation would be retained. Evidence simply was not produced by the Department to demonstrate a necessity to retain the documentation. Equally, the issue of whether the address at which one first registered is still the valid address arises in the ongoing accumulation of all the supporting documentation.