Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I assure the Senator that there is no provision for charging individuals for the furnishing, replacement or renewal of a public services card. We have rolled out more than 250,000 of the cards thus far, mainly to new applications and in the jobseeker's area in particular, the intention being to roll out the scheme to other social welfare clients in due course. We are entering into an arrangement with the Passport Office, which already uses biometric photographs, to allow us to avail of that data without asking people to provide a new photograph. However, some retired people, for example, have told me that they do not particularly care for their passport photograph and would prefer to sit for a new one with their hair done and so on.

We hope to complete the roll-out by next year. It is a very important development in terms of deterring identity fraud. The new biometric photographs are sufficiently sensitive to flag a situation where, for instance, a person on the database in the Tallaght office is also on the database in another office. The system will seek verification in such instances as to whether it is the same person. Other schemes are also vulnerable to fraud under current arrangements. In the case of the free travel scheme, for example, which is greatly valued by those who are eligible for it, there is a problem of misuse, not in respect of pensioners, I hasten to add. As we roll out the card, we will be in a position to verify the identity of persons availing of free travel, which is not confined to retired people. Several of the transport providers are reporting problems with forged travel cards or people using legitimate cards inappropriately.