Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Nash. Earlier, he referred to the fact that we have 3 million MyGovID accounts. Much of this was driven by people not being able to go into Government offices that were closed down because of the pandemic or wanting to do things online to keep a degree of separation. We have a very broad electronic ID. We have a form of authentication that has a very wide uptake compared with similar forms in the average European country. What we do not have is the breadth of Government services available. The number of things that can be done with MyGovID is not large enough. The focus for this year and the coming years will be on extending the use of MyGovID across more Government services. Revenue and the Department of Social Protection are great examples. One can do most everything one needs to do online. That could be seen with the pandemic unemployment payment. One can also register for college and so on. I would love to see that extending into the HSE, for example.

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