€2.5m PSC hotline a ‘scandalous waste’
Cards didn’t need call to be activated
THE Government has been slammed over a €2.5million “hotline to nowhere” for Public Services Cards that was scrapped after it was decided it wasn’t needed in the first place.
The “absolutely scandalous waste of money and resources” was raised by Labour Senator Ged Nash at an Oireachtas committee yesterday.
He told members: “I have received information from the Irish Mirror, which the journalist there received on foot of a Freedom of Information request, that raises serious questions around this.
“Ultimately, because of the intervention of the data commissioners, a new system appears to have been set up, and that appears to have been a hotline to nowhere, because the fact remains that while 1.4 million people contacted the helpline to, as they would see it, activate
their card, there was no activation required whatsoever.
“It appears to me this was an absolute waste of your [the department’s] resources, money and staff ’s time. “I think we can safely conclude this was a waste of €2million.”
The civil servant-manned phoneline for the new PSCS took 1.385 million calls at a cost of €2.47million up to August 2016 when it was scrapped.
The Irish Mirror revealed before Christmas the calls were pointless as no real activation process was ever carried out and cards were “activated” whether you rang or not. Assistant secretary general at the Department of Social Protection, Tim Duggan, replied it was something they didn’t feel was necessary either, but they went ahead on advice of the data commissioners.
He said: “It’s essentially the same as somebody renewing their motor insurance at their address and by the time the certificate gets out in three or four days’ time they’ve changed address.”
The Data Protection Commission was asked for comment but failed to reply by time of going to press.
IT’S been dubbed the “hotline to nowhere” by Labour senator Ged Nash – a needless service that Mandarins from a Government department said they never wanted to set up but did anyway.
Sure what the heck, it’s €2.5million and aren’t the taxpayers paying it?
That seems to have been the sickening attitude from faceless Government officials when asked in Leinster House to account for the money wasted.
Yet again, it’s the controversial Public Services Card project in the middle here, with a useless “activation” phoneline scrapped after it was decided it was a waste of time.
Well, it’s also been a waste of money and we, the taxpayers, have been caught on the hook again.