Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentation. I will return to what Deputy Shortall said about aligning the PPS number and the client identifier number. I am concerned about that and about the timescale. I will give a simple example that happened with me yesterday. Someone had a PPS number that was the same as their husband's, but with the letter "W" added to it. A new PPS number had been assigned but when they went to register something with a State authority, it was rejected on the basis that the date of birth did not correspond with the PPS number. They used their old PPS number without realising that a new PPS number had been assigned. Neither had their employer been aware of it. When I contacted Revenue the date of birth registered for that person was 1 January 1852. I do not understand why there were two PPS numbers being used by the same person and by the Department of Social Protection, but they had not been put in together even though it was one person. When we move from PPSN to client identifier, will we have the same problem? I am a bit concerned about how it is going to be done and the kind of the timeframe it will take. Has that been worked out?