Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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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.

Finian McGrath (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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I thank Deputy Sherlock for raising this very important issue. The PSC was provided for in legislation in 1998, when it was introduced alongside the personal public service, PPS, number to replace the previous Revenue and social insurance number, RSI, and the social services card, SSC. It acts as an identifier for access to a broad range of public services.

The public services card can only be requested or accepted as proof of identity by a body specified in Schedule 5 to the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005, as amended, and only where that specified body has a transaction with a person concerned. In other words, the PSC can only be used to verify a person's identity where that person is availing of a public service and the relevant public body is authorised to, and prepared to, accept the PSC as proof of identity. The provision of financial or banking services is not a public service. Banks or other financial institutions or private sector bodies are therefore not specified bodies for the purposes of the PSC. This means it is not possible for a person to offer his or her PSC as proof of identity to a bank, or any other institution such as a credit union, which is offering banking services, nor is it permitted under social welfare legislation for a bank or a credit union to accept a PSC as proof of identity, even if a person volunteers to present his or her PSC for this purpose.

When the Department is made aware of any requests being made by a non-specified body for a person to produce or provide details of their PSC, officials from the Department contact the organisation concerned and advise it of the legislative provisions in place in respect of this matter. Specified bodies are in all cases required to process and store data in accordance with the general data protection regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018, as amended. A provision is included in the Social Welfare, Pensions and Civil Registration Bill that was published and proceeded through pre-legislative scrutiny in 2017 to allow people to voluntarily present their PSC as proof of identity but only if they choose to do so. It would, under this provision, remain illegal for a body other than a public body specified in the Social Welfare Consolidation Act to ask for or require production of a PSC. This provision, if passed, will increase the utility of the PSC for people who hold one without imposing any obligation on them to make it available other than for use of public services.

The PSC delivers valuable customer service benefits. For example, more than 600,000 free travel journeys are undertaken every week by holders of the PSC. More than 600,000 payments are verified each week using the PSC and approximately 400,000 PSC holders use the MyGovID service to access online public services. Satisfaction levels among users are very high, which one does not often hear about figures in the public domain. Earlier this year, a customer survey on the PSC was published. The survey, which looked at customer satisfaction around the processes and procedures involved in applying for a PSC, was undertaken independently on behalf of the Department by specialists in customer experience consultancy. More than 1,000 PSC holders, of varying age and gender, were interviewed. The results showed that 96% of PSC holders surveyed were either very satisfied or fairly satisfied with the process. Almost nine out of ten, 87%, agree that it is very useful that other Government service providers may be able to use the identity information already provided in obtaining the PSC to avoid the need to provide the same information. Nine out of ten of those surveyed felt that they either had access to the right level of information in respect of the SAFE-PSC process or had access to more than they needed.

Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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I thank the Minister of State for his response. To some degree, the Minister of State is supporting the point that I am making about the success of the card and the satisfaction that people have when they use it. The Minister of State mentioned that there are customer service benefits, that more than 600,000 free travel journeys are undertaken every week with the public services card and more than 600,000 payments are verified. I am seeking to speak for people throughout Irish society who, as may surprise the Acting Chairman, would not have a passport or driver's licence, which are the two other obvious forms of identification. They are in possession of the public services card. We are merely asking that the services could be expanded, especially for anti-money laundering purposes, such that where a person is carrying out a financial transaction where proof of identity is required, especially in a credit union with many older people who use it, the public services card would be deemed to be fit for purpose for proof of identification and to adhere to the money laundering legislation. The Minister of State tells us that there is a high degree of satisfaction with the card and that people are comfortable using it.

It really brings us back to the point of whether the Social Welfare, Pensions and Civil Registration Bill 2017, which has been sitting there for two years, could be expedited in a way that would ensure that a provision could be made that it could be used for anti-money laundering legislation, so that if somebody opens an account in a credit union, the public services card could be deemed to be a valuable or appropriate form of identification. That would probably have the effect of ensuring greater confidence in the card and probably ensuring that it could meet the anti-money laundering requirements.

Finian McGrath (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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I totally accept the point about the confidence and popularity issue. As I was saying before I ran out of time, 96% of PSC holders surveyed were either very satisfied or fairly satisfied with the process. Almost 88% of those surveyed felt that they had access to the right level of information in respect of the SAFE-PSC process or had access to more than they needed. Some 77% understand the requirement to retain personal information and do not mind that their documents are retained.

On the other issues, only bodies specified in legislation have access to the data. The full list of specified bodies is contained in Schedule 5 to the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005, as amended. It lists all Ministers, city and county councils, education and training boards, the HSE, voluntary hospitals, schools, institutes of technology, universities and a range of civil and public services bodies. The only data that are collected and verified in a SAFE 2 registration process are in the limited set of data contained in the public services identity data set, which is defined in sections 262(1) and 262(3) of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005. This is a person's PPS number, surname, forename, date of birth, place of birth, all former surnames, all former surnames of his or her mother, an address, nationality, photo, and signature. Only these data and elements of it are shared with specified bodies. The legislative basis for sharing these data is set out clearly in section 262(6) of the Act, which states where "a specified body has a transaction with a person, the Minister may share the person’s public service identity with the specified body to the extent necessary" for that transaction.