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

Nobody has been refused a payment for failure to produce a PSC. There is no legal basis for the card. People are asked to come in to identify themselves under the SAFE 2 authentication process to a standard that is acceptable to the Minister under the law. In the case to which the Deputy referred, the client had not gone through the SAFE process; it had nothing do with the PSC.

The Deputy will appreciate that my Department needs to verify the identity of our customers to a substantial level of assurance to ensure that they are who they claim to be, that they are not being impersonated, that they are not claiming services or payment in another identity, to minimise the need for them to prove their identity over and over again, and to provide them with access to an increasing range of online public services, thus making interaction with the State easier. The SAFE 2 identity verification standard agreed by the then Government in 2005 provides that substantial level of assurance and the requirement for it is provided for under section 247C of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005, as amended, in respect of customers of my Department. Once customers complete a SAFE 2 identity verification process successfully, they may be issued with a PSC as a physical token of having done gone through that process. Nobody will make them take the card. If they do not want it, they do not have to take it. The Department does not collect data on the number of individuals who currently, or who, at any point in time, have had a payment stopped by reason of failing to complete the SAFE 2 registration process because the data is fluid in nature.

For example, a considerable number of customers who have a payment or entitlement suspended or stopped subsequently decide to complete the SAFE 2 process and have their payment or entitlement reinstated. The decision to stop a payment is never made lightly or quickly. However, where a customer does not "satisfy the Minister in relation to identity" as per the legal requirement, a payment can be disqualified. In advance of any such disqualification, the Department makes every effort to engage with the customer to explain the legal basis for the SAFE 2 identity verification process and the consequences of potential disqualification. Where a payment has been disqualified and customers subsequently successfully completes the SAFE 2 registration process, their payment will be reinstated by the Department, assuming they meet all the relevant qualifying criteria for that payment. I hope that clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

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