Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy is absolutely right, but it is not a change. I repeat that the public services card is to do nothing other than access public services. The reason the Deputy gets authenticated the first and only time is that if he goes through the SAFE process and he proves he is John Curran, he will never have to do it again. The Deputy will have proven with the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection that he is John Curran. When the Deputy goes to get a driver licence or if he makes a SUSI application, he will have proven he is John Curran. Rather than duplicate the whole effort of giving them his ID dataset again, the Deputy will have already proven who he is once and all he has to do is tell these people that he has been SAFE 2 passed and they will have access to all the Deputy's data and they will know the Deputy is the one and only John Curran.

There is no change to the remit of the card other than what we all agreed here in 2011. The people who can share the dataset are listed in Schedule 5. They are SUSI, the Passport Office staff, the driver licence staff and the health identifier staff. It is all listed there. There are 50 bodies, in which there are 102 sub-sections, but it is only to access public services. The Deputy will never be asked to whip out his PSC from his back pocket and prove he is John Curran.

With regard to national identity cards, for what it is worth, I would be totally opposed to them.

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