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

I have a habit of making things more confusing than they were in the first place, so I apologise. There is no requirement to have a public services card. It is only a by-product and people are only given cards to prove that they have undergone the SAFE 2 process and passed. If a person does not want a card, nobody will make that him or her get it. Nobody can ever ask him or her for the card and there is no legal basis for a person being asked for the card. If a person wants the card, brings it home and puts it in a drawer and it never sees the light of day again, then this is game ball. If a person does not want the card, then we will not print or make a card for that individual. It is, however, underpinned by law that a person has to undergo the SAFE 2 process. SAFE 2 is a more robust method of proving a person's identity than SAFE 1. When the Deputy obtained her passport, she would have been adjudicated under the SAFE 1 process, but we now have a more robust mechanism to ensure that Joan Collins is Joan Collins. This is called SAFE 2. It means that a person comes in with the required documentation and it allows us to take the his or her photograph and run it through the system to make sure that nobody else is using the same identity. It is a different and more secure level of verifying a person's identity. When a person is invited to go through the SAFE 2 process, he or she is obliged, under the law, to do so. The letter to come in is sent out and the person will not be cut off after 20 minutes. We will send another letter and another. We will try repeatedly to encourage people. There are many people who get the letters and just put them in the bin. The identity verification is about the process, not the card.

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