Public sector heads should roll in PPS debacle

BEFORE an Oireachtas committee recently, Phil Hogan informed us that, “whereas the population of the State was 4.58 million, there were 7.2 million PPS numbers, a difference of 2.62 million”.

Readers will remember that the idea behind the PPS numbers was to provide a secure, verifiable ID system for the State. We were told that your PPS number would become more important than your home address in this digitally enlightened age.

This mismanagement of the State’s ID system has the potential to provide for 2.62 million fraudulent dole and medical card claims. You can be absolutely sure that when the system was being set up, no end of public money was thrown at it. Huge consultancy fees would have be paid, the best computer equipment purchased, endless contracts for outside IT companies signed off and, of course, ten times more people hired to run it than would ever be needed. How then did these civil servants make such an expensive, monumental cock-up ?