Given that it's nothing to do with EU policy and you've elected a government that makes Big Brother seem fairly easy going and the alternative is a centre left party that also loves data mining citizens, I'm not quite sure how being out of the EU will help at all. It may actually become more extreme as any data gathered won't be subject to ECHR or EU data protection / privacy rules...
The original rationale in Ireland was that it would cut down on welfare fraud (popular amongst centre with voters) but then it suddenly seems to have morphed into a quasi-compulsory National ID card, just without calling it an National ID card.
The passport card is actually handy enough as it's genuinely 100% voluntary and just gets you around Continental European ID issues if you're spending a lot of time there. It's an absolute pain in the rear when you have to start bringing passports to access offices, or carry them around the place generally. The main reason the Irish Passport Office pushed the rollout was to avoid having to deal with as many lost passport books caused by having to constantly have them on your person on the continent.
There's some push back on it here on the "Public Services Card", but I don't think it's turned into a huge political issue. Although, Irish voters can sink governments over less. Water charges here turned into a massive political issue and have basically been rolled back upon and may yet even lead to constitutional referendum to prevent anyone ever privatising Irish Water.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
