Mr. Jim Breslin:

Legally and administratively, they work hand in glove. The legislation underpinning the individual health identifier sets out that. The identification of a person that is facilitated by the public services card is a very hard and secure level of identification. We will not replicate that in any way. We will rely entirely on it. The person who assigns an individual health identifier will have access to the public services card identification database to make sure the person receiving that identifier is who he or she claims to be. We will seed all of the health systems using the Department of Social Protection's public services card databases. That is all governed by a memorandum of understanding that is being signed off by the Department of Social Protection, the Department of Health and the HSE. The two numbers are not one and the same because of the experience internationally. People are very sensitive about their health information. The difficulty that arose in other jurisdictions where these two structures were combined was a reduction in the uptake of the public services card by people who were afraid that somebody with access to their social welfare or personal public service number could dive in and access sensitive clinical information about their health.