Nicky McFadden (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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To ask the Minister for Social Protection when a national roll-out of the public service ID cards will take place; if there is information available on the success of the pilot programme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [37968/12]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The Department of Social Protection (DSP) has developed, in conjunction with a number of other Government Departments, a rules based standard for establishing and authenticating an individual’s identity for the purposes of access to public services. This programme of work, which is known as the Standard Authentication Framework Environment or SAFE for short, also provided for the introduction of a Public Services Card (PSC) to enable individuals to gain access to public services more efficiently and with a minimum of duplication of effort, while at the same time preserving their privacy to the maximum extent possible.

A PSC is currently issued following a “face-to-face” registration process which involves the capture of an individual’s photograph and signature and the verification of identity data already held by the Department. In order to ensure that the processes, facilities and ICT systems worked in practice, the SAFE registration process was successfully piloted in three DSP Local Offices (Tullamore, Dublin Kings Inn and Sligo). The pilot also aimed to establish the resources needed to roll-out SAFE/PSC registration nationally. It also indicated the need for legislative changes to support the new processes and some of these were included in this year’s Social Welfare Act.

The pilot has been completed and a roll-out of SAFE/PSC registration centres nationally is now in progress. SAFE/PSC registration is currently being extended via the DSP Local Office network, and a number of new dedicated SAFE Centres are being set up initially in Dublin and, over time, in locations nationally.