Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 4:

In page 10, to delete lines 23 to 25.

I will also speak to amendment No. 10 and respond to amendment No. 5, which has been proposed by Deputies Wallace and Daly.

Amendment No. 4 proposes to delete section 7(6) and amendment No. 10 will have the effect of removing section 37(5) of the Bill. Both of these were amendments made to the Bill on Committee Stage, which I opposed and flagged that it was my intention to revert to them.

Section 7(6) provides that the presentation of a public service card or access to a person’s public service identity may not be the exclusive basis by which a public body may verify a person’s identity. Along the same lines, section 37(5) provides that when designating a base registry, the Minister shall allow a person to verify his or her identity by means other than presenting a public service card or by allowing a public body access his or her public service identity.

Amendment No. 5 seeks to add a similar provision to section 13 that presentation of a public service card or access to a person’s public service identity may not be the exclusive basis by which a public body may verify a person’s identity.

All three amendments concern the use of the public service identity, which the Deputies want to make optional. The public service identity is defined in the Social Welfare Consolidation Act as the following: PPS number; surname; forename; date of birth; place of birth; sex; aIl former surnames, if any; all former surnames, if any, of the person’s mother; address; nationality; date of death, if applicable; certificate of death, where relevant; a photograph of the person, where required, unless deceased; the person's signature, unless deceased; any other information that may be required for identification purposes that is uniquely linked to or is capable of identifying the person; any other information that may be prescribed, which in the opinion of the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection is relevant to and necessary for the allocation of a PPS number; and any data that is collected by a public body and by “any data” I mean data collected directly from a person as well as through data sharing. If any of this data includes any of the information I have just listed, then this is public service identity data.

The Deputies’ intention here is that public bodies should not use the public services card or the public service identity as the “exclusive basis” to verify a person’s identity to provide them with a service. This means that a person can refuse to provide basic information like name, address and date of birth and yet public bodies would still be required to verify the person's identity somehow. My difficulty is how I would do that.

I will set out an example. These provisions would mean that the Revenue Commissioners would be unable to use the public service identity as the exclusive means of verifying identity. There is no other way of reliably identifying a person for online or telephone-based services. Accordingly, Revenue would no longer be able to provide online or telephone-based services to taxpayers because it would no longer be able to verify a person's identity. This would have a dramatic and somehow catastrophic effect on the services Revenue delivers to more than 2 million taxpayers as well as on the State's capacity to collect taxes and pay for our public services.

A similar impact would arise across a vast range of public services, including social protection, housing and health services. Examples include the free travel pass scheme and the early childhood care in education scheme as well as the services of the National Cancer Registry and the Personal Injuries Assessment Board. All these organisations use the public service identity data set to provide their services. These provisions will have a real serious and singularly damaging impact on the ability to administer all of these schemes and services. In some instances it would lead to the collapse of public services. I am sure this is not the intention of the House.

It is difficult to see what could be used as an effective alternative means of verifying a person's identity if a person were to request an alternative, which would be a right under the provision. Clearly, this would lead to a difficult state of affairs. Given the explanation that I have provided to the House, I appeal to Members to support my amendments and to delete the unworkable provisions from the Bill. I appeal to the Deputies who have proposed the other amendments to consider withdrawing them based on the explanation I have provided and the unintended consequences for public services across our Administration.

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