Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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588. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the services and licences whereby a citizen must have a Government services card. [14070/22]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The SAFE registration process is the process through which a person satisfies the Minister for Social Protection as to their identity.  Once their identity is verified in this way, they are issued with a Public Services Card (PSC) which can be used as proof of their identity when dealing with public service bodies.

Social welfare legislation provides that it shall be a condition of any person’s right to benefit that they, inter alia, satisfy the Minister as to their identity. The definition of benefit includes all social insurance and social assistance payments, as well as other payments such as child benefit. 

In respect of other transactions with my Department, a person must also satisfy the Minister as to their identity:-

1. Before they can be allocated and issued a Personal Public Service Number (PPSN);
2. Before they can be issued a Public Services Card;
3. To continue to receive benefit , once they have been requested to satisfy the Minister as to their identity.

All specified bodies, including my Department, are entitled to ask a person for their PSC as proof of their identity for the purposes of a transaction; where such a request is made, there is a statutory obligation on the person to produce their PSC when requested.

The matter of when, or for what reason, another specified body, other than my Department, seeks production of a PSC as proof of identity is, subject to them having the authority to request a PSC, a matter for those bodies. My role, as Minister for Social Protection, is to conduct SAFE registration and issue a PSC for the purposes of a transaction.

The Data Protection Commission has recently acknowledged that specified bodies, other than my Department, can use the PSC as a means of verifying identity, so long as they also provide alternative means of verifying identity.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.