Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

In very many cases, persons who do not currently possess or cannot obtain a driver's licence or a passport offer their public services card, PSC, by way of identification. Credit unions have been told by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection and by the Department of Finance for well over three years that the cards should not be accepted as ID, much to the frustration and significant inconvenience of persons who are willingly offering the card as ID as they try to obtain financial services.

The number of gardaí in the country willing to sign an ML10 form has dramatically declined. That is understandable. Members of the Garda are being asked to verify the identification of persons they do not know, and so many decline. The credit unions and banks are not being overly prescriptive; they are merely enforcing the law for fear of prosecution and fines. Credit union personnel are terrified to accept the PSC as proof of ID, as they are aware that at least two Departments warn them against accepting this proof of identification where the individual has no other proof. In essence, we have a cohort of people wanting to use the public services card to obtain and sustain access to financial services on the one hand and, on the other hand we have two Departments refusing to allow financial institutions to facilitate their clients in the fight against criminality and white and blue-collar crime.

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