Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 18

In page 14, after line 25, to insert the following:

“10. The Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection shall, for a period of at least six months following the enactment of this Act, ensure that a personal public service number is not treated as mandatory or as the only acceptable means by which the Minister can be satisfied as to the identity of an individual seeking access to social welfare payments or services.”.

Amendments Nos. 18 and 19 propose alternative approaches to deal with the same issue. This is a last effort to implore the Minister to ensure that for a period of at least six months following the enactment of the Act she does not make the public services card, MyGovID or inclusion in the single customer view dataset mandatory or as the only acceptable means by which she can be satisfied as to the identity of an individual seeking access to social welfare payments or services. Given that very serious concerns have been raised about the process by which people are signed up, the level of appropriate information provided to persons and the use of the single customer view dataset by other specified bodies, I ask the Minister to press the pause button for a brief period and ensure that while people may still have the option to seek a public services card, we do not require anybody to do so while there are still serious concerns and many question marks over this.