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

I thank the House for making time available for the Data Sharing and Governance Bill 2018 and to consider the amendments made by the Seanad Éireann. As I have told the House already, the legislation is key to delivering on our public service reform commitments to expand the digital delivery of services and to make greater use of data to plan, deliver and evaluate public services. The Bill also provides for stronger governance and transparency by the public service in the way it shares and manages data. I look forward to the support of the House in passing the Bill.

I propose to take amendments Nos. 1 to 3, inclusive, together. Amendment No. 1 proposes to delete section 7(6) of the Bill.

Amendment No. 2 seeks to amend the text of section 13(2)(a)(ii)(I) and amendment No. 3 will have the effect of removing section 37(5) of the Bill. The amendments all concern the use of the public services card and the public service identity.

These amendments reverse previous amendments made by this House during Committee and Report Stages. The House inserted provisions into the Bill that require that presentation of a public services card or access to a person's public service identity may not be the exclusive basis by which the public body may verify a person's identity and that public bodies shall provide alternative means for identity verification. I opposed these amendments at the time for the following reasons. The public service identity is essential to the provision of services to the public and comprises the following: PPS number; surname; forename; date of birth; place of birth; sex; all 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; and 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.

The Attorney General has advised that if any of this information is collected by a public body, it is considered to be public service identity data. This applies whether the data is collected by a public body directly from the person or through data sharing. Accordingly, the consequence of retaining these provisions is that Government would have to provide services to citizens who choose not to provide basic information like their name, address or date of birth. The question before the House is how this could possibly be done. There is no way to provide services to people who refuse to provide this level of information. This would place an impossible obligation on public bodies to provide an alternative method of identity verification which does not involve the public services card or the public service identity. The problem is that there is no possible alternative way to identify people without using a public service identity because, by definition, this alternative identity data becomes public service identity data also.

People would be able to use the legal loophole created by these provisions, for instance if they were to refuse to co-operate with essential but unpopular public services like the recouping of overpayments or jury duty. The Seanad, on consideration, has accepted these arguments and has accordingly amended the Bill to remove these provisions. I ask the House to support these amendments from the Seanad.

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