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

The Government's point is not to bring in a national identity card. The public services card does not have the characteristics of a national identity card that may exist in other countries. It is absolutely not a requirement to have a public services card on one's person. A member of the Garda Síochána cannot ask to see a person's PSC as it would be against the law. The card cannot be requested by any public or private body or person not included as a specified body in the Social Welfare Acts and particularly the legislation passed in this House in 2011. It can only be used by public bodies specified in that legislation in the context of conducting a public service with the person concerned. The legislation therefore narrows its application considerably and provides the clearest evidence that the intent of the public services card has always been limited to the provision of public services. Accordingly, it is required for the receipt of certain public services. In the same way that other services require identification documentation or tokens, such as bank cards, membership cards for clubs and colleges, etc., it is appropriate for public service providers to similarly require people to prove their identity when accessing public services. That is underpinned by the Social Welfare Acts, as amended in 2011.

Deputy O'Dea sought reassurance around the issue of the use of the PSC in commercial transactions. I am quite happy to provide that reassurance. Under current legislation, only bodies specified in the Act or their agents can ask for and use the PSC. There is absolutely no legislative proposal to change this or to remove this important protection for public services card holders. Section 5 of the Bill seeks to provide a practical solution to the potential difficulties that could arise where the holder of a PSC wishes to produce the card voluntarily for identity purposes to a body that is not specified in law. The holder of a public services card may wish to use the card, for example, to verify the person's identity for the purposes of signing up to a utility company contract or to open an account with a financial institution. The public services card is proof that the identity has been authenticated using the standard authentication framework environment, SAFE, process underpinned by law.

Currently, by accepting the card, the recipient may be committing an offence. Bodies that accept a PSC that is offered to them voluntarily by the holder should not be prosecuted or at risk of prosecution. The volunteering of the card is the critical issue here as it is the person's will and intent to do this. If this provision is passed it will continue to be the case that only public bodies can ask for the card to be produced and it will continue to be an offence for private sector organisations to do so. To be absolutely clear about it, this proposal in no way allows a private sector body to access the customer data on the card chip or on any Government database. It simply allows the body to view and accept the card as a form of identity and to stop it being an offence for it to be accepted, as it is today. This measure will be very beneficial to card holders and, in particular, those who do not hold a driving licence or passport. It is also provided free of charge. I reiterate here that the inscription of the date of birth on the public services card will be done on a voluntary basis only. Nobody will have a date of birth on a card without having requested it in the first place.

I want to touch briefly on issues of data protection and the security of the card. My Department takes its data protection obligations very seriously. It works extensively with the Data Protection Commissioner and consults regularly with her office on any major developments or proposed changes, including over the years relating to the PSC. The Data Protection Commissioner is clear that all uses for the PSC must be set out in legislation and I agree entirely with that. The Department has provided considerable information on its website about the PSC and identity services generally but we are working to improve that in keeping with recent recommendations from the Data Protection Commissioner.

On the question of the security of the PSC, the position is that it has multiple protection mechanisms, all of the highest current international standards, to prevent and detect tampering with the physical card and its contents. As well as some hidden security features, there are visual measures such as the overall graphical design, branding, the use of optical variable ink and a kinegram, which is a particular type of hologram. In addition, a PSC and a card reader communicate with each other by cryptographic means. Only card readers specifically programmed to accept PSCs can undertake this functionality.

I will move to some of the matters raised before tonight. A number of concerns were expressed by Deputies that certain provisions set out in the general scheme relating to defined benefit pension schemes have not been included in the Bill before us on Second Stage. As I had set out in my opening remarks introducing the Bill, in light of the complexities involved, it simply was not possible to have those amendments included in the published Bill. I assure all Deputies, as well as defined benefit pension scheme members, that a key priority for the Government is to provide additional protections for scheme members' pension benefits. It is essential that any new measures recognise the current pensions landscape in Ireland so that a balanced and proportionate approach is developed. I intend to introduce a number of amendments to the Bill on Committee Stage that will ensure an employer cannot walk away at short notice from the pension scheme it is supporting.

The amendments will provide for a 12-month notification period where an employer seeks to cease making contributions to a pension scheme. This period will enable stakeholders to enter into discussion and negotiations on all relevant matters and to develop a plan to sustain the scheme. The Committee Stage amendments will provide that where these steps have failed to resolve difficulties, for example, where no funding proposal is agreed and put in place by both parties, the Pensions Authority may determine a funding obligation on the employer in the form of a schedule of amounts and dates by which those amounts have to be paid to the trustees of the scheme. The amendments will act to support existing provisions in the Pensions Act and will encourage employers to ensure that schemes are well-funded and managed. Taken collectively, the amendments to the Pensions Act seek a middle road between the current position where employers can abandon defined benefit schemes and full and immediate debt on employer provisions. The amendments are designed to ensure the sustainability of defined benefit schemes for scheme members and continued trust in the pensions system as a whole. I should say also that other amendments to be brought forward on Committee Stage will allow for entitlement, in certain circumstances, to a spouse's pension for civil partners and same-sex spouses who are members of occupational pension schemes.

A number of other matters in the pensions area were raised by Deputies in the course of this debate. One such issue relates to the funding standard, which provides a benchmark against which the health of a scheme can be tested. The funding standard is also how Ireland meets its legal requirements under the relevant EU directive in respect of occupational pensions. When a scheme fails the funding standard, that means that unless some action is taken, the scheme will not be able to pay all the benefits promised. The funding standard is a wind-up standard and is intended to approximate the moneys needed to secure the benefits if the scheme was wound up and the accrued benefits bought out. Any reduction in the funding standard would not improve a scheme's ability to pay the benefits as they fall due.

The existence of the funding standard itself is not the central issue in whether a scheme is properly funded. Rather, the responsibility rests with the employer and the trustees for ensuring the scheme is properly funded and managed. However, the funding standard provides the regulatory mechanisms for ensuring a scheme can live up to a base level of pension benefits. I agree, however, that the difficulties facing defined benefit schemes in Ireland could be assisted through greater flexibility in calculating the funding standard. In this regard, the Pensions Authority reviewed the funding standard with a view to identifying measures that may be employed. The following are examples: there could be better tuned risk reserve calculations for schemes with liability matched investment strategies; simplified procedures where the employer commits to continue or increase funding proposal contributions; and smoothing, by averaging results over a period and avoiding overstatement of annuity costs.

The funding standard liability for retired members is based on the quoted market cost of buying annuities. Concerns have been raised that the quoted costs may overstate the cost of an annuity purchase. In reality, many scheme actuaries have addressed this by getting quotations for bulk purchases. These measures identified by the authority are currently being considered by the officials in my Department.

As regards the provisions in section 8 relating to the arrangements governing the recovery of benefits from compensators, I can assure the House that there is no impact on the position of claimants and no question of double deductions from them.

As to section 7, which deals with automated decisions, Deputies will be aware that the legislation allows that, in cases where child benefit is in payment and another child is born, once the birth of the additional child is registered, the rate of child benefit is automatically increased without human intervention. That is an example of efficient customer service.

It is now time to bring in a more general approach in the legislation to allow my Department to take full advantage of the speed and efficiency that is now available through technology, in order to make payments to our customers as quickly as possible. While I cannot predict what technology will be able to do in the future, the plan for now is that the simpler and more straightforward decisions will be taken by automated systems for decisions in the affirmative. Those which require more judgment will continue to be taken by human deciding officers. This means that trained staff resources can be used to best effect. In other words, processing simpler and more positive decisions by computer frees up staff to undertake the more complex decisions and other work, thereby speeding up the process for everyone. This is not about reducing staff numbers, as was suggested. Deputies are well aware that we have a service level contract to make sure that certain claims are processed within a certain amount of time. During the year different stresses are put on those claims. This is about using the resources of a 7,000 strong Department to the best effect to provide the services that we do for our client base.

I am conscious that the decision to award or refuse a social welfare payment, particularly for long-term payments, can have huge implications for our customers. My Department's customers come from all sectors of society. Some will welcome quicker processing based on online applications, while others may be less familiar with technology and may feel more comfortable with the idea that human intervention is possible. This would particularly be the case if the decision is that they do not qualify for a payment. That is why we are only going to use computers in the affirmative. The legislation provides for a balanced approach. The new measure will allow for an automated system to take decisions to award payments, but any decision that a person does not qualify for a payment must be taken, as it is now, by a deciding officer, i.e. a human being. There is no question of this being a rubber stamping exercise. The staff in my Department are extremely aware of the importance of making the correct decision.

Deputies mentioned the issue which has been raised by Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív outside of this House to disregard, for means-testing purposes, foster care payments which originate in the UK. I am advised that legislative changes will not, in fact, be required to allow for equivalent amounts of such allowances to be disregarded.

Several Deputies raised the issue of JobPath. I want to reiterate what I said at the outset of this speech, namely, that JobPath specifically provides an externally contracted activation service for those customers who have been unemployed or underemployed for at least 12 months. It is there to assist customers who are seeking full-time employment. There is some suggestion that customers are being consistently harassed. It is simply not true. People who are underemployed or unemployed long term - for longer than 12 months - are engaging with employment advisors to try and help them get the employment that they have registered an interest in. Anybody who is registered for a social welfare payment is declaring that he or she is looking for work. All JobPath is doing - in an exceptional way - is helping those people find jobs. That is all it is there to do.

All persons who have been unemployed for over a year and in receipt of payment from my Department, including casual employees and those returning from other supports such as community employment and back to education allowance, are eligible for referral to JobPath, because by engaging with the Department of social welfare they are saying that they are underemployed or unemployed and want to find work. That is what JobPath does for them, and it does it very successfully.

Almost 150,000 jobseekers have engaged with JobPath to date. A customer satisfaction survey was conducted - anonymously, before anyone says there was a fear of telling the truth - over the past couple of months indicated that up to 81% of customers were satisfied with the service. Of the 150,000 people that have gone through the doors in the last 18 months, only around 300 people have made a complaint. I cannot work out the figures, but that is a tiny percentage. JobPath has exceeded its target of helping people become employed or find employment far in excess of what we ever expected them to do.

I want to be clear that there is no harassing of customers. Customers are referred to JobPath for help in guiding them to try and find work or obliterate obstacles that they may have found during their own 12-month period of searching for work. Anybody who has evidence of the claims that are being made within this House should provide it to me and I will investigate it. If spurious claims are made in this House without any information then that is all they are. Only Sinn Féin have made these claims about JobPath. They are spurious claims to attack what is probably the most successful employment activation programme we have ever run in this country.

Deputy Brady raised the issue of waiting times for the domiciliary care allowance. I am happy to confirm that progress has been made on that issue and the average waiting time for a decision is now just under 17 weeks. When the Deputy raised the issue it was 20 weeks. It is still too high. The target we have set for ourselves in the Department is 12 weeks, but we have had an enormous surge of claims in this particular scheme in the last couple of months. We are working our way through to try and reduce them by using staff we have transferred from different Departments to make sure we bring down that backlog, because 17 weeks is still too high.

I appreciate that Deputies raised a range of issues during the course of the Second Stage debate, some of which are budgetary matters and, therefore, are not going to be discussed in the context of this Bill. We will be discussing them in the next couple of days, and I hope that Deputies will be in a position to join with the Government in welcoming some of the decisions that we hope to make in the next couple of days.

I welcome the generally positive response to the Bill, both here in the House and in private meetings I have had with every party. While it has not been possible to address all of the issues raised in these concluding remarks, I look forward to the debates on Committee and Report Stages in the next couple of weeks where we can engage in detail, particularly on the amendments to be brought forward on Committee Stage. I commend this Bill to the House.

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