Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister has been a cheerleader for the public services card. He has encouraged people to avail of it as a means of access to other public services in the areas of transport, passports, and many others. We have heard of the willingness to spend public money on promoting that idea. The Minister is, however, in a sticky situation. The Data Protection Commissioner has expressed in three of her main findings that there was no legal basis for persons to be required to obtain a public services card in order to transact with a public body other than the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection. The commissioner has put the Minister firmly in the dock in that regard. She has also said that the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection was in breach of data retention principles by keeping all data indefinitely and that the Department has been insufficiently transparent with the public in respect of the roll-out of the card. On one hand, the Minister is willing to spend taxpayers' money on challenging the Data Protection Commissioner's findings while on the other hand he will end up funding the commissioner to take this case on the other side.

The new national childcare scheme opens for applications on 29 October. No parent can apply for this scheme without a public services card.

This is despite the Data Protection Commissioner's decision that there is no legal basis for this requirement and it being deemed illegal by the commissioner. Parents who do not have a public services card will have no choice but to wait until January when written applications can be made. Why did the Department interject when a secondary method to apply for this scheme was to be provided for parents? At the insistence of the Department, this proposal was dropped by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs. Will the Minister explain this, given that the Data Protection Commissioner has deemed that there is no legal basis for leaving parents with only one option as regards the form of identification they can use to apply for the scheme?

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