Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

We are providing for the technical feasibility to use electronic means for signing on. There are many technologies that could be used but a simple proposal we are likely to use is an electronic signing pad, where a person would physically come into the social welfare office to sign on a pad. If the machine is satisfied with the signature it will register that the person has signed. This cannot be done without the person being present. I understand it is very difficult to forge a person's signature with such accuracy that an electronic signing pad would not know the difference. There would be more chance of a person falsely signing in front of a human being and getting away with it than with the electronic signing pad.

Another proposal is a very innovative mobile technology that will be used on a very small basis until it is proven. All the law will give us is the right to use electronic means. To say that we can use electronic means to fly aeroplanes and deal with banks but not deal with signing people on would be to return to the past.