Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)

Deputies raised the issue of the smart card driving licence. As far as I am concerned, the sooner we can get it in place, the better. In fairness to previous Ministers who wanted to move on this process, only in recent weeks have we reached agreement at European level to move to a European smart card driving licence. Many of the large countries in Europe were against this proposal because the logistics and costs involved will be phenomenal. In euro terms, tens of millions or hundreds of millions will be spent because they do not have licensing systems such as Ireland's. They give licences for life and will need to recall 60 million or 70 million licences.

The specifications for the smart card's chip must be agreed. I am told that this process will take approximately 18 months at EU level. There is not much point in developing a chip for Ireland with a specification that could be different from the European standard. We can all agree that we should get a chip that is the same for everybody so that all the systems can talk to one another, as it were, and we do not need to replace chips later.

Ireland has always looked positively on the proposal to develop a smart card driving licence quickly. We are urgently waiting for the specifications to be agreed. As soon as Europe produces these, Ireland will immediately go to a smart card basis. As Deputies know, this could play a positive role in a range of issues, including second-by-second communications between information systems. We will be in the hands of Europe until this matter has been resolved. Ireland will adhere to the Europe-wide specifications.

It is appalling that something such as described by Deputy Crowe could happen to the individual referred to. It is probably an exception but is still unjustified. I am aware of cases in which people were given someone else's information and needed to defend themselves despite not being guilty. I hope——

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