Mr. David Cooney:

To respond to the first of Deputy Dowds's remarks, we are issuing more passports than ever and I pay tribute to my colleague Joe Nugent for his work in the passport service to improve the level of service to the public. We have introduced an appointments service for customers attending the Molesworth Street office. If one visits that office, one will no longer find queues. People are in and out from their appointments in a very short period of time. We have rolled out a service which allows people who need to travel at short notice to get a passport within three days and we are hoping within the next month to improve that service to provide a same-day service to those in emergencies who need to travel, subject to certain criteria, in particular in relation to children. We must be extremely vigilant with regard to children.

The incidents of fraud were discovered by the passport service itself. An incident of fraud came to light in the middle of last year. We called in the Garda and an investigation took place, which resulted in the interview of a number of officials. There are two officials who are no longer in the employ of the Department as a direct result. I understand the Garda will be sending files to the Director of Public Prosecutions. As part of the same exercise, we discovered another incident.

Again, it is related to a small number of staff being interviewed by the Garda. As of now, two members of staff are suspended. We are conducting our own internal investigation into the two members of staff concerned and obviously I cannot say what the outcome of that investigation will be.