Almost 5% of all social welfare claims are bogus, a rate the minister believes would be reduced if photos were included on social insurance cards. At the moment, fraudsters often claim in several locations using fake identities, helped by the fact that visual ID is not required.

Brennan said his department had identified various types of abuse, including forged or altered ID documentation and “identity theft”, as well as PPS card piracy by criminal gangs in urban areas.

He said undetected welfare fraud could be as high as 10% in the three key areas where abuse was concentrated — unemployment benefit, lone parent’s allowance and disability benefit for workers sick for long periods of time.
Civil rights campaigners, however, are concerned that issuing ID cards to social welfare recipients would be a precursor to countrywide cards.

Labour’s Joe Costello called for a halt to the “surreptitious slide” towards a national identity card. “Clearly, what Seamus Brennan is proposing will amount to a national identity card in all but name, so I think we need to discuss carefully the data protection issues that arise from such a move before we go any further.
“From Ryanair to the banks, more and more institutions are demanding the production of passports or other recognised forms of ID. I think it is time we had a fuller debate on the privacy issues that can arise from such widespread availability of private, personal information.”

Aisling Reidy, of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, also expressed concern that the inclusion of a photograph would lead to a national ID card.
Reidy said international evidence had shown that identity cards were not an effective tool in combating terrorism. She said it was crucial that the benefit to the state of photo ID was not offset by a disproportionate loss of individual rights.

As civil liberties campaigners voiced fears that photographs would be a stepping stone to a compulsory national ID card, Brennan insisted his sole concern was to eradicate undetected dole and welfare fraud worth up to €600 million.

Brennan’s plan is part of a wider crackdown on fraud. Every citizen and immigrant worker in the state has a unique Personal Public Service (PPS) number issued by the welfare or tax authorities. Two million people have already received special PPS cards bearing this number.

Social welfare recipients, migrant workers from the 10 new EU states and children reaching the age of 16 have all been automatically issued with cards as the national roll-out of the scheme continues.

One department source said that the counterfeiting of PPS cards was already a significant racket in a number of the country’s “gangland areas”, and the inclusion of photographs would be a major aid to social welfare inspectors trying to tackle the problem.

Brennan said: “We recovered nearly €400m in fraudulently claimed benefits last year, but my officials estimate that the amount of undetected fraud is at least the same again.”

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