Irish computer

The Irish computer system that issues Personal Public Service (PPS) numbers is open to fraud because it cannot recognise foreign names!

Since 2000 more than 650,000 PPS numbers have been issued to non-nationals and the Department of Social and Family Affairs are unable to check if the applicant is already on the system because the database is not big enough.

Also there is no way to automatically cancel PPS number should a person leave the country leaving their identity open to be sold on.

A PPS number, which is a unique public identity number, can be used to claim social welfare, gain working status, open a bank account, get a credit card and claim health benefits which means that identity fraud is costing millions to the taxpayer.

What is it with this country and computers that end up costing the taxpayer millions, we’ve had the famous e-voting which cost €50m for a system that didn’t work. We had PPARS health service payroll system
which went from an estimate for the project back in 2002 of 8.8 million euro, but the final cost was likely to be 231 million euro.

And to think we have computer companies basing their R&D here. God Help us!