Ms Niamh O'Donoghue:

When the programme was designed, our initial target was pensioners, particularly because of the expected correlation between the free travel pass and the pension and that fact that it was a form of identity that would add a number of different benefits. When the recession hit and there were concerns about issues such as the possibility of welfare tourism or whatever, the initial focus turned to people who were in receipt of jobseeker's payments. There would have been two parallel processes. As I explained to Deputy Nolan earlier, there was a group of people whom we felt comfortable about - they were low-risk and we had other information about them - and hence we could offer them a reduced process. In parallel, we were inviting jobseekers to a face-to-face registration process and inviting pensioners to a reduced process. That was and remains our core target in terms of trying to ensure coverage. We were somewhat constrained in doing that, which is why we are only at 70% or 75%, by virtue of our ability to offer registration processes in all parts of the country. I am now fairly confident that we are there or thereabouts, so that will no longer be a constraint.

In order to maximise our use of the registration capacity, we then started looking at wider customer groups. I suspect it will be people who receive child benefit or illness benefit. We have started a thread in that. Much more recently, because we wanted to engage with all the non-governmental organisations involved - the National Disability Federation and all the rest - we are treading very carefully in our engagement with people who are in receipt of disability allowance or invalidity pension, because we know there are much greater sensitivities with regard to their ability to attend at an office or engage with us in a way that allows us to be satisfied on a matter. We have started those processes but we are further back in terms of moving into that cohort than we are in regard to the jobseekers, lone parents or child benefit recipients. It is precisely because we are now moving beyond the core base that we are looking at creating appointment systems and trying to facilitate registration in areas and at times that might be convenient to people who work.