Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 18 September 2012
868. Deputy Paudie Coffey asked 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]
View answerThe 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.
