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A MAN, WHO had previously been denied a Public Services Card (PSC) due to his refusal to acquire an adoption cert, has finally been given his card after an eight-month struggle.
The 48-year-old man had first attended, of his own volition, for a PSC appointment last July, with his short-form birth certificate as proof of identification.
When it became clear that his details weren’t present on the list of births held by the General Register Office (GRO), the man told the officials present that he is adopted.
He subsequently refused to get an adoption certificate, something the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection (DEASP) had declared to be a prerequisite for all PSC applications, leading to an impasse.
His short-form birth cert had previously proved to be no impediment to the man obtaining a passport and driving licence.
Over the course of the last eight months, the man engaged in over 50 correspondences with DEASP, seen by TheJournal.ie, including addressing multiple letters to Minister Regina Doherty, arguing for his right to be given a card, and suggesting that in denying him a PSC he was in effect being discriminated against because he was adopted.
Legal basis
The legal basis for the requirement for an adoption cert in the process has never been outlined, a persistent criticism of all aspects of the PSC’s current expansion to multiple state services (such as driver theory test and first-time passport applications) first confirmed in May 2017.
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The man in question, meanwhile, is one of seven adopted citizens who have spoken to TheJournal.ie regarding their similar experiences when applying for the card.
Then, in mid-February, the man received a letter from the Client Identity Services section of DEASP, informing him that should he present with his short-form birth certificate to his nearest INTREO office, that should now prove sufficient to finalise his application.
Having attended another appointment at end February, and having shown that latest letter from DEASP (pictured above), he subsequently received a phone call from the office informing him that the department’s policy section had ruled his application could once more not be processed.
“I told the girl ‘this is an issue bigger than you or I’,” the man tells TheJournal.ie. “I had assumed the letter would be enough to get me over the line. So I told her to contact the official who sent me that letter.”
“I called back a week later, and the same girl followed up with me and said that my card would now be issued. Two days later it arrived in the post. It was a lot of struggle for a little card.”
The story of DEASP’s concession to this man comes hot on the heels of news earlier this week that the PSC will now not be a mandatory requirement for citizens hoping to apply for a driving licence – part of the card’s expansion that had been in development for 12 months.
Concessions
It also follows a number of concessions by the Department of Justice (DoJ) regarding its Data Protection Bill, currently navigating the Seanad, including a reversal on a plan to immunise Ireland from hefty EU fines applicable via the union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which comes into effect on 25 May.
Both the driving licence climbdown and the softening of the DoJ’s stance have come in the aftermath of a scandal involving the UK data intelligence firm Cambridge Analytica, which stands accused of harvesting 50 million US Facebook profiles with the goal of influencing voting in the 2016 US presidential election.
TheJournal.ie queried DEASP as to why the man was allowed to obtain a PSC, given the department’s own guidelines, and asked whether or not it can now be taken as read that adopted people are under no obligation to present an adoption cert when registering for the card.
“Where difficulties arise the department will work with the person applying for the
card and the circumstances of the individual case are considered with a view to ensuring that there is a satisfactory outcome for the customer,” a spokesperson said in response.
The department continually monitors the progress and delivery of all its schemes and, where considered appropriate, they are refined to provide a better service.
In its response, the department also acknowledges (for the first time, so far as TheJournal.ie is aware) the precarious nature of dealing with adopted people in such circumstances, saying “it should be recognised that adopted people, who are unaware of their adoption status, may inadvertently find this out, in instances where they are required to provide their birth details”.
“I think they knew I wasn’t going to go away,” the man says meanwhile. His original objection had been due to the perceived discriminatory nature of the process, and what that might mean for someone who applied for the card without realising their adopted status.
Either that or they thought I had a point and thought it was easier to shut me up. The fact I got it in the end… it’s a big effort for a little card. It’s a victory, maybe a small victory but how and ever.
“I’ve travelled the world and been to seriously restrictive countries and they never asked me for an adoption cert.”
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Well done to asti they stood up to this evil government
Let’s hope they continue to do so.
Asking the membership to vote on the SAME issue for a third time in quick succession would be a disgrace & if it happens, many members will stop paying their union subs.
Listen to your membership, not this toxic government with their acts of coercion they call “agreements”
They should be ashamed of them selves lazy sods
To whom are you referring?
Never met a non lazy union member
Fire them 10 at a time until they mend their ways and egos
Probably just a bowel movement.
A1
ASTI realises it is out on a limb,looking at Quinner with the saw.
Hardly. Quinn wouldn’t know how to use a saw. A sledgehammer is more his style
These teaches sicken me and any other hard working person in ireland. They don’t even know how easy they have it.
Wbat plandt are you on?? imagine dealing with likes of you tines 30!
Why do I think this is the union leadership (clueless of the realities of teaching) are selling us down the river !!
Can’t see how they can change the croke park/ haddington road deal sufficiently to make me want to vote for it ! The ability to carte blanche changes to my contract on the future without negotiation is enough of a reason to say no – no private sector worker would accept it so why should I !!
If they try to re-ballot us yet again then that will signal the end of the Asti as a union because they will not have any members left
Kenneth’s obviously just a troll; don’t feed him!
A slave more like
Perfectly happy with the status quo. No to Haddington Road. No to pointless Croke Park hours. No to unpaid S and S. No to any further erosion of our terms of employment.
No escalation in industrial action by the ASTI members, yet Min Quinn has not introduced legislation to block supervision & substitution payments that TUI members no longer receive.
The “open-day season” has come and gone and complaints by irate parents seem to have died down.
All quiet on the Western Front?
If ASTI unwilling to perform their jobs to the required standard, they should all be replaced. Plenty if NQTs who can’t get a sniff of a job. I’m sure they would be willing to perform the tasks required of them. ASTI are out of touch with reality. Hiding behind this “out of concern for the children” rubbish. They are only concerned with feathering their own nests. Given that they have 4.5 months holiday, their pay per hour actually worked is one of the highest in the state, yet still they think they are entitled to be shielded from the recession. Why?……..because they have an Arts degree?
The ASTI members would have been better off renouncing the supervision-and-substitution payments and refusing to the Croke Park/Haddington Road hours.
Possibly, but then schools would have closed, something most teachers don’t want to see happen, I know I don’t.
They’ve imposed draconian measures on us, grand, now feck off and let us teach, unless they want meaningful conversation on JC reform & “extra hours”
@Liam H
“but then schools would have closed”
Not necessarily. What I meant is that they could do S&S without payment. S&S are hardly stressful tasks. Schools have a duty of care towards pupils.
Your being led into a dead end
By noise makers and lads that dont
Seem to grasp the reality of the situation.
If only the.private sector enjoyed the same protection. . But hey. .divide and conquer
If only the public sector could get the same wage increases as the private sector received!!
Here here Des !!!!!
Ill put it another way to these
Lads..enough faffing around
All out strike or take your bite
Of the huge shit sandwich
Like everybody else
have your say