Mr. Joseph Nugent:

Deputy Byrne raised the question of the number of passports. In some ways it is a really interesting question. The average number of passports that have been issued over the past nine years has been in the order of 600,000. We have seen a gradual increase in that over the years. To answer Deputy Byrne's question in so far as I can, clearly we are not just talking about people who are resident in the State. We also have to factor in the 40,000 people who are resident in Northern Ireland, the 40,000 who applied through our office in London, and the 40,000 who applied through our embassies overseas. That is 120,000 out of the 630,000. If one considers that children are applying for three or five year passports, as the case may be, they are occurring more frequently than the standard adult passport. Lastly, if one factors in lost or stolen passports on top of that, it is roughly another 30,000. The last figure I saw for the number of live passports was a little less than 5 million. When one thinks of the population of Irish citizens around the world, that does not seem to be completely out of the ordinary. It reflects an increasing demand for individuals to change their passports as well. We have quite a number of repeat customers who, for whatever reason, seek to change their passports. I am tempted to tell a human story but that may be for another day.