Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

-----understood that there were different years involved.

We are talking about the public services card. A number of weeks ago, I mentioned the fact that I did not have a public services card. Ms McCrum nicely wrote to me and offered the services of the Department if I wanted to get one. I wrote back to explain that a couple of weeks ago, I think, I arranged by appointment to go into the branch office in Portlaoise, and I received my public services card in the post the following Thursday, so it is a very efficient service. I have not had a reason to use it yet but I acknowledge the efficiency within the Department and the courtesy of the staff.

I want to raise one issue with the card. The witnesses will be aware of it as it comes up at our meetings quite a bit. I refer to the free travel aspect of the use of the card. There has been a lot of confusion among many committee members who are trying to understand how the free travel card works and who has details of it. We asked the National Transport Authority, representatives of which were before the committee a few weeks ago. They said the matter was the Department's affair and that it needs to answer. We have had issues with Iarnród Éireann regarding a particular case I highlighted in which a person received a bill for use of a free travel card where the card had been cancelled some months earlier. The person should not have been using it. I have been very clear on this. That was not the issue I was talking about. I was just curious about the use of the free travel card and how it is known what travel has been taken on it.

Iarnród Éireann has a system in place called a fixed penalty notice. Most of us would not be expert on this, but the Iarnród Éireann representatives said this was available, but seemingly it has a separate process. It can issue a bill, which is a civil matter separate from the fixed notice. I am giving Irish Rail - or Iarnód Éireann, as it is - the benefit of the doubt. In some cases it issued a specific bill to a specific person for the use of the card and based it on actual travel or journeys used. I would never have contemplated that it would issue a bill for an exact figure without having details of it. I was being generous in assuming it had the details but it told me the statement I made was untrue. This is not a matter for the witnesses before us; it is background. What is clear is that Iarnród Éireann has issued a bill to a person on the basis of a four-month period elapsing, whether or not it knows whether the card was ever used or how many times. It has issued a bill just on the basis of time. I find that even more disturbing than issuing a bill based on actual travel. We have asked for clarification on that from Iarnród Éireann. We will come back to the matter. We were told recently in respect of the travel operator - in recent weeks we have had a couple of meetings at which this has come up - that when the card is used there is a number on it that the Department has such that it knows the trips that are taken on the card when it goes in and out through the machine on the platform, but it does not know who the person is.

This is the reference number the travel operator has and the Department can then match it to the individual. The Department has details of the persons travelling through the public services card. We will take it step by step.