Mr. Joseph Nugent:

To follow up on Mr. McCarthy's comments, all local authorities routinely receive the death event notification but in the absence of the unique identifier, there are limits to what we can do. Clearly, every effort is made is to try to match as best we can but, ultimately, the absence of that direct linkage with the PPS number is a barrier.

I appreciate Senator Keane's agreement about the need for local involvement in this. I will provide an anecdote involving a friend of mine whose father was bereaved and whose polling card had been pulled locally as a result of that local awareness, which was referred by Senator Keane and Deputy McLoughlin. That local effort and knowledge are certainly very valuable and important elements of the process. In our view, centralising that and taking away some of that local knowledge will not address trust and provide the support one would want.