The use of the personal public services number by public service agencies as a unique identifier for individual clients is provided for by the Social Welfare Acts, 1998 and 2000.
The number is issued and managed by my Department. The number is allocated to children as soon as they are registered for child benefit but the numbers are not issued to individuals until they reach the age of 16. At that stage young people are issued with a social services card, which is a magnetic stripe card, bearing their name, PPS number, issuer and date of issue and also carrying their date of birth, gender, primary account number, expiry date and card service code electronically encoded.
The REACH initiative, established by Government in 1999, is charged with encouraging the use of the PPS number across the public service. It is also charged with developing a public services card to act as the individual's key to personal data and public services and to aid in the establishment of identity when conducting transactions with public agencies.
In the context of more widespread use of the PPS number, the Department of Education and Science proposes to use it as the individual pupil identifier for new entrants to second-level schools from next autumn. My Department will supply the number for each pupil to the Department of Education and Science which will then issue the numbers to the pupils in due course.
It is not proposed to issue either the social services card or any form of smart card at this stage to these pupils pending development of a comprehensive card policy. The policy will deal with the future form and use of the public service card and the use of a smart card will be among the options considered. In the meantime, my Department will continue with the present arrangements for issue of the social services card.
