Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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1849. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the number of helpdesk staff in her Department and the costs associated with calls from customers to request activation of the public service card; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [37878/17]

Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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1852. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the number of public service cards produced; the number of cards that have been activated to date in 2017, in view of the fact that at the end of June 2016, over two million public service cards had been produced; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [37885/17]

Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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1930. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the outcome of completing the activation process on public services cards with respect to the use of the card; if the card can be used without being activated; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [38976/17]

Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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1931. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the number of non activated public services cards which are currently in circulation; the steps she is taking to ensure they are in the possession of the correct person; the safeguards in place to ensure non activated cards are not used by persons other than the correct cardholder; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [38977/17]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 1849, 1852, 1930 and 1931 together.

In all, approximately 2.8m Public Services Cards (PSC) have issued since SAFE registration commenced in 2011.

At the time of the commencement of the roll-out of the Public Services Card (PSC) in 2011, the then Data Protection Commissioner requested that controls be put place to ensure that PSCs were getting to the correct people. As a result, the Department requested that customers, on receipt of their PSC, make contact by telephone to confirm receipt of their card. This process was known as ‘activation’.

As part of the procurement of the production, personalisation, distribution and management of the PSC, the managed service provider was charged with the provision of a helpdesk facility to deal with customer enquiries including ‘activation’ calls. The number of staff on the helpdesk is dependent on the call volumes at any time.

Things have changed since the Data Protection Commissioner’s original request. Firstly, the PSC is sent to an address that has already been verified during the SAFE registration process within days of that process, i.e., there is no delay between registration and issuance of the card. Secondly, as more public bodies use the PSC and with the introduction of MyGovID, the opportunities for confirmation that cards have been received by the correct person have increased. Thirdly, the registration process now facilitates the capture and verification of mobile phone details. Accordingly, the Department considered that the ‘activation’ service was no longer required and decided to cease asking customers to ring to confirm receipt of their PSC with effect from August 2016.

There is no activation process for cards post issue. All issued cards are valid.

Calls to the customer support helpdesk (the majority of which were ‘activation’ calls) up to September 2016 cost €3.1 million including VAT.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputies.

Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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1850. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the estimated costs of developing and issuing public service cards in 2017; if she has made provision for further costs in 2018 and 2019; the cost of the managed service provider contract to date in 2017; the duration of the contract with the service provider; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [37882/17]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The roll out of Public Services cards is demand led. As a result it isn’t possible to precisely predict the volumes of cards will be issued or their costs over a given period of time. My Department has made a provision of some €5.2M to cover all costs associated with the PSC project in 2017. The Department’s estimates for 2018 and 2019 have not been finalised with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.

To the end of July 2017, the latest date for which statistics are available, payments amounting to €3.626M including VAT, have been made to the managed service provider for card production and the provision of a customer helpdesk.

The contract with the managed service provider is scheduled to run to the end of this year.

Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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1851. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if she will publish the original business case for the SAFE public service card project that was under development in the early 2000s; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [37883/17]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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While a single document business case was not produced in the early 2000’s, the Department did endeavour, in as much as was then possible, to set out the constituent elements of a business case in the 2004 and 2005 Memoranda for Government and various associated papers (including the Accourt Study into the PSC and the SAFE Business Requirements).

In his 2015 Report on the Accounts of the Public Services, the C&AG found that elements of a good practice business case were included in several documents examined.

Given the innovative nature of the project and the fact that there weren’t any ready references for comparison purposes, it was not possible in the early stages of the project to determine precise costs and staffing requirements. Accordingly, the Department developed the project in phases and prepared costs and staffing requirements once they became known through these various phases.

The first phase of the project involved the research and design of a card and associated processes. From July 2005 to July 2007 the Department concentrated on the development of the detailed functional specification required for the PSC. It also developed a project proposal for the development and deployment of the PSC and associated infrastructure. This led to a submission in July 2007 to the Department’s Management Board resulting in the Board giving its approval to proceed with the project proposal and with the preparation of a Request for Tender for an outsourced card management service.

The second phase then was to undertake this procurement exercise for a managed services contract for the production of the card. This was completed in 2009 and then provided the Department with definitive costs for this element of the project.

The third phase was the operation of a trial or pilot to test how registration processes and card production facilities would work in practice. Once this was completed it was then possible to determine the staffing levels that would be required to undertake the customer registration processes countrywide. It would not have been possible to determine the staffing requirement in advance of this phase. This was completed in 2011 culminating in the Department’s request for sanction to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform in that year.

The fourth phase was implementation which began gradually as resources became available and registration infrastructure was deployed.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.