Mr. Tim Gaston:

With regard to the CIÉ subsidised services, public services cards are issued by the Department to the clients. The Department determines the entitlement and the people who are supposed to get the cards. The way we set up the Leap scheme from the start was that the two technical teams worked together. The arrangement we came to was the Department would send us an electronically read number. This not the number printed on the card but an electronic record of every card issued. The Department is the only other organisation we allow to issue cards that can be read on our system. All of the other cards are issued by the NTA. This is a security measure. The Department issues cards to its clients and sends us the electronically coded number. This is the only information we receive from the Department unless it has decided a card is no longer valid. It separately sends us another list of those cards to be blocked.

When we receive the information on the cards that are valid, we simply put it into our back office so that when we see a card being used we know it is a valid card that was issued by the Department. When we receive information on cards that have been blocked, we create a hotlist that we send electronically to all of the ticketing equipment on Irish Rail, Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann and to inspection equipment so that when the card next appears to be used in public transport it is blocked. From that point, the card can no longer be used for public transport.

The final piece of closing the circle is that on a regular basis we send a file to the Department containing the electronically read card number, the operator, the time and the date. This is the information we provide to the Department.