Ms Niamh O'Donoghue:

I would like to pick up on a couple of aspects of what the Deputy has said. The actual cost increase is very small. According to our projection for what the 2017 figure will be compared to what we set out, there will be a cost increase of €3 million. I absolutely accept that the cost of registering and delivering the card to individuals was not included in the initial cost. If that cost is added on, it brings the entire cost up to €60 million. Contrary to what has been portrayed, it is not a cost increase of €24 million or €27 million. The cost of the actual contract has increased by €3 million or so. There are specific reasons for that. There have been delays in reconfiguring the production contract. I referred earlier to all the things that delayed the project in taking a foothold. Obviously, we had to reconfigure the financials with the provider. We also had to pay for some enhancements to the card to deliver certain variants and to take account of other users, for example by integrating it with the Leap card, etc. It costs more to build in additional functionality under the card. The Government has accepted that it has always been our ambition to ensure the card itself is a relatively simple product, albeit an extremely secure one. In other words, identity information but nothing else is contained in the card.