Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)

It is not envisaged that the new plastic driving licence will be a national identity card. I do not have a problem with a national identity card, but there are no plans to introduce one. At the same time we will introduce a new social welfare card. It will be very important in cracking down on social welfare fraud to have a photograph-based social welfare and public services card. It will replace the existing PPS card. That will be the more valid identification than the plastic driving licence. Ideally they would all be contained in one, but we are not there yet and European directives do not allow us to do that.

This is a model of the new driver's licence and it has a chip on the back, unlike the UK one. It is the most modern plastic licence and that is the best anti-fraud measure possible. Of course people can still replicate them, but it would be better than the current system.