Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not know whether the Senator is aware that some challenges were made to the Ombudsman's office last year regarding decisions made on appeal for a variety of scheme applicants. The Ombudsman's office overruled decisions that had been made on appeal by our deciding officers because we did not have the relevant supporting documentation for those decisions. We were instructed that if we did not keep the supporting documentation, we would not be able to stand over the decisions made thereafter. Our office retains people's proof of the identity at the time of their application. When somebody else makes an application or submits a second PSC card application, we refer through the system for all that person's supporting documentation. In order to be able to identify and authenticate somebody who tries to apply a second time, we need to be able to reference the documents they used in the first instance. That is the reason we retain documents, and the problem-----