Public Services Card
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-30
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Louise O'Reilly (SF), Dublin Fingal West

The Minister will well understand why I and others, such as the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and other groups, are necessarily cautious about this. For example, when the public services card, PSC, was brought in, it was said that it would be mandatory but not compulsory, or vice versa . In the end, the requirement for those over 65 is that they must have one of these cards with a chip in it to access the free travel scheme. There is a creeping sense that people are being asked to hand over their identification and have a level of trust – this is not personal to the Minister - in the Government in the holding of their data. I do not believe that sufficient work has been carried out in order to assuage people. The Data Protection Commissioner has already made a ruling in this regard, although I understand it is under appeal. That ruling was damning of the Government’s capacity to handle people’s data.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-30/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:49+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-30