Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I do not regard it as a waste of time. It is an important discussion.

I have a number of key concerns. I appreciate the Minister's full response. I look forward to debating the issue with her, albeit not just when the Social Welfare, Pensions and Civil Registration Bill is before the House. I hope that we will have the opportunity to engage on it in advance of that Bill. A number of provisions in that Bill, and one of its sections in particular, are even more concerning. I may engage with the Minister further on that. The Minister is aware that the Joint Committee on Employment Affairs and Social Protection, which my colleague, Senator Ardagh, is also on, will be considering this issue in the spring.

I could have waited for that Bill.The concern is that we have seen an acceleration of the push out, the promotion and the demand for the public services card. When the Data Protection Commissioner has expressed such serious concern, and given that we are still waiting for, as the Minister said, the proper full response of how we implement GDPR, I would have hoped that we may have entered a period of slow down or caution where we seek not to drive something forward when we do not know if we are on the right path or are proceeding in the right manner.

I will not push all of my amendments but I will press one or two. They are an attempt to apply the brakes. They are not a radical restructuring but are an attempt to apply the brakes while we wait and ensure that we get our house in order.

The Minister mentioned, and it has been mentioned widely, the need for identity verification in order to access services. We should be very clear that under current legislation, the public services card cannot be used as a method to verify identification. It is used specifically for the purposes of a transaction. So there is a question, and there have been questions, as to whether or not some of the usages to which it has been put in terms of identity verification fit the constraints of the definition of a transaction. It is not sufficient to have a PPS number. I have sought to access a service and have been denied it, even though I have a PPS number but because I did not physically have a public services card. That is an experience that many people will have had, even in terms of, for example, seeking a driver's licence. One cannot get a driver's licence with another form of identification and one's PPS number. One is required to have a public services card. That should not be the case but it is what is happening.