Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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To ask the Minister for Social Protection the number of new photo ID cards that have been issued to persons who are in receipt of social protection payments; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39210/12]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The Department of Social Protection 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.

The roll-out of the SAFE registration functionality on a national basis began in June this year. The creation of a SAFE registration environment in a local office involves improving the technical connectivity, installing new equipment and training staff in these offices to support the registration process. To date, this process has been completed in 30 local offices and a total of approximately 25,000 PSC’s have been issued through these locations.

Work is continuing on developing the required bandwidth, installing the appropriate equipment and training staff across the remainder of the Departments local office network. In addition, a number of dedicated public service card registration centres are being progressed and will start to come on stream over the coming months.

In the meantime, production continues to ramp up across the offices where registration is operational and it is expected that the target of approx 100,000 face to face registrations will be achieved through this channel by the end of the year. The majority of cards issued to date have been issued to new claimants for Jobseekers Benefit/Allowance and applicants for a new PPS number in Local Offices that have been equipped to carry out SAFE registrations.

In addition to the above, a pilot for a reduced registration process using information already available has commenced and the Department has engaged with over 4,000 pensioners as part of this pilot with a view to testing and validating this reduced process. Subject to the outcome of this pilot, the Department will be introducing new registration methods which will allow for commencement of rollout of the card to customers for whom a reduced process is appropriate. With the range of registrations processes available, the numbers of PSC to be produced from 2013 onwards will be significantly increased.

Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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To ask the Minister for Social Protection the number of social welfare offices that have been fitted with the technology in order to process the data on the new photo ID cards; if she will provide a list of these offices in a tabular form; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39211/12]

Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will provide in tabular form, the number of persons in each social welfare office that have been found to have been making fraudulent claims as a result of the new photo ID cards; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39212/12]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 869 and 870 together.

In conjunction with a number of other Government Departments, my Department has developed a Public Services Card (PSC) under the Standard Authentication Framework Environment (SAFE) Programme, the main objective being to develop a common standard across public services for establishing and authenticating identity. The rollout of the Public Services Card has recently commenced and SAFE registration facilities are currently being implemented across the Department. To date, SAFE registration stations have been installed in 29 offices nationally. The details are set out in the tabular sheet attached. Some 25,000 PSCs have been issued to clients of the Department, mostly jobseeker clients who are the first cohort of DSP customers to use the PSC.

The registration process is being built into the standard claim taking process for a number of schemes and in addition, some clients with existing claims are being invited to register. Over time, client groups for SAFE registration will be expanded to encompass all DSP scheme clients, clients of other public sector organisations, and across the general population of Ireland. The establishment of client identity has always been a vital part of the Department’s claim processes and any issues that arise in relation to identity are fully investigated in establishing entitlement to social welfare services.

While figures on the number of SAFE registrations directly linked with incidences of fraudulent claiming are not readily available to date, it is important to point out that considerable emphasis is being placed on the introduction of the card as a strategic fraud prevention and detection tool. There are a number of areas where fraud prevention and detection will be enhanced through PSC roll-out and these are set out below:

Identity fraud: Combating and preventing the use of dual or multiple identities to fraudulently claim social welfare payments; preventing the use of a false or duplicate identity to engage in concurrent working and claiming; payment Instrument: preventing and assisting in detecting identity fraud or false encashment at post offices.

Non-residency: preventing and detecting incidences of non-residency from the State. The card will be a more secure payment token than existing Social Services Card and for Post Office payments, it will help mitigate this problem.