Quote:
Originally Posted by haddockman
The new cards are already available but it could take 5 years to convert all the DSP passholders and in the interim the old passes would remain valid.
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Actually, things can be done much quicker than that.
It seems that each Social Welfare Local Office (not branch office) is expected to sign 200 people up to the new Public Services Card (PSC) each week. There appears to be 50 such offices, although distribution is somewhat uneven - 5 in each of Kerry and Mayo, but only 4 in Cork - despite 3 times the population and twice the land area.
That is about 509,600 maximum that can be processed each year, with a population of a bit more than 4,500,000 it will take more than 10 years to record everyone, when you account for the more than 500,000 people that will be born or immigrate in that time.
However, there are only 1.1 million FTP pass holders and many of them (those living in an urban area) are required to have ID already. So potentially they could have it done in two years or less. However, the FTP isn't the only source of loss, so all active welfare claimants are being moved to the PSC.
Separately, I think the DSP productivity levels leave something to de desired. I signed up for a card voluntarily and it seems that it takes 3 front-office staff to process those 200 cards per week, although I suspect the back-office requirement is modest. Some better management, streamlining and economies of scale would work wonders.