Paschal Donohoe, then Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, launches the Public Services Card (PSC) in 2016
FP Logue Solicitors write:
FP Logue received confirmation today that the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection has agreed to pay social welfare benefits to a client who refused to register for the Public Services Card (PSC).
Our client had presented a passport and proof of address with an application for benefits and received a formal decision from the Deciding Officer that the payments would be available for collection in the local post office in due course.
Subsequently our client was informed by a member of staff that the approval had been a mistake and that the payments would be suspended until such time as an application for the PSC was processed.
Our client refused to make the application and asked for written reasons to be provided. The position was subsequently confirmed in writing that payments were suspended until a PSC application was processed.
We wrote to the relevant official on our client’s behalf pointing out that there was no requirement under social welfare law for an applicant to register for the PSC and that the payment had been unlawfully suspended and that our client had been grossly misinformed as to their rights by officials.
We received confirmation today that payments have been released confirming our assertion that a PSC registration is neither mandatory nor compulsory for the purposes of accessing social welfare benefits.
There you go now.
Be interesting to know how many vulnerable recipients of social welfare benefits were denied payment until they did obtain a PSC. I wouldn’t imagine many would go to solicitors if they received a letter from the DSP, they’d just comply.
I would dearly, dearly love to be a fly on the wall when Regina gets this news.
Its mandatory but not compulsory…
And the officials in the Department , will there be an investigation into their behaviour? To my mind , another case of and individual promoted far beyond their abilities ….
a Deciding Officer is any grade from clerical up – promotion is not necessarily involved
Ah OK , didnt realise , sure its grand so …
A country almost ungovernable because of cranks.
Cranks, you say?
So, FG privatize the dole office. Said private company forces people to sign up to the id card. Then company sells on private information? Is that what we are looking at here?
for a finders fee of course
FWIW, the dole office isn’t privatized. It’s operated and run completely by civil servants.
Will the state be sued? Hopefully!
Genuine question here. Can people who forced into getting this card take a case over it , I say forced but we didn’t actually have to get it but we couldn’t access certain things without it.
Can I now apply to the department to have all the details collected when forced to get card deleted from their files?
Yeah but it does require payment of a much higher sum be paid out to solicitor’s office to have your rights proven and payment released. Thats cute.
So lady part Angina and the bluepoos lose again! Like their Nazi forebears, the department gimp was “only obeying orders” still I don’t think that was a good enough excuse for Nuremberg :)
Can we have an election now please?
Joe