Driver theory test, passport renewal, welfare claims: just a few vital services of which you will not be able to avail unless you register for a Public Services Card (PSC). Launched in 2011 for use by welfare recipients, the PSC has been forced slowly into use by a large, and still growing, number of government departments.

Paraded as part of the toolkit to combat fraud and improve the efficient provision of public services, civil rights campaigners have lamented what some view as the introduction of a mandatory national ID card ‘by the backdoor.’ Ireland, Denmark, and the UK (excluding Gibraltar) are currently the only EU member states not to issue national ID cards to their citizens.

Presentation of an ID, strictly in the form of the PSC, is required to claim pension payments. Failure to produce a PSC, rather than a driver’s licence or a passport, has resulted in payments to a woman in her 70s being refused and back-payments denied, regardless of whether she registers for a PSC in the future.

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