Mr. Joseph Nugent:

That raises a couple of points. The many Irish passports used in Dubai at the time of the assassination in 2010 never turned up. One assumes they were destroyed immediately after the people using them exited the country.
I thank the Deputy for raising the question. The physical copies of the passport images were published on the Internet and several commercial con men have been using and trying to sell reproductions of those images and identities to the unsuspecting. In a couple of cases individuals have turned up in banks or other places with something that has some of those identity pieces. The message needs to get out that there are official ways to apply for a passport and if one engages with con men one will be conned.
Senator Mullins raised several questions and it might be useful to repeat the points. There is a passport reminder service available on our website, passport.ie. It is very simple. The individual puts in the expiry date of the passport and receives an e-mail from us three months or so in advance of the expiry date. We might bring that reminder date forward. The service is not well known and we need to do a little more work on that.
Last weekend we had a stand at Holiday World as part of a general campaign to remind people about passport issues. We asked people at the stand three questions, and we continue to ask them: Do you know where your passport is? Do you know when it will expire? Do you know when your childrens’ passports will expire? If we can get those questions out from here and elsewhere it will make our lives easier but more important, it will reduce the stress that people suffer before they travel. The Minister said last week that we are committed to putting in place something to address some of the problems around urgent travel. I caution that we will not be in a position to provide the service to the 600 people who demanded that type of service two years ago. We will have to find something that is balanced. If a person finds himself or herself in genuine difficulty, unbeknownst to himself or herself, and if there is a mechanism we can use to do something about that we will try to put something in place before the summer peak. If there are issues that the members feel are relevant we will be more than willing to take them on board.