Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I support Senator Gallagher and the Chairman on this concept. It is a case well made. Brexit obviously makes it more relevant. We have a passport office down in Cork and obviously in Dublin. However, there is nothing to facilitate anybody north of Galway and Dublin to get a passport appointment. If one is coming from Donegal to Dublin, it is a long way to go, whereas people from Kerry, Limerick and Waterford can go to Cork. It is a huge difference. What we are highlighting here accidentally is discrimination against anybody north of Galway and Dublin. Under the Good Friday Agreement, everybody within Northern Ireland is entitled to be a citizen of the Irish State. They are citizens of the Irish nation and should all be treated equally and have equal access to passports.

On the issue of emergency passports, I received a phone call from a person in County Donegal last night to which I replied nothing could be done. The person simply could not get to the passport office in time to get to a flight from Knock. Whereas if there was an office in Monaghan and a person was coming from Donegal, it would only have been down the road to Knock. That is the practical element of what Senator Gallagher is talking about. It is something that we should put forward as a formal motion in the committee. Perhaps we could raise it when the Minister comes before the committee and perhaps Senator Gallagher could attend that meeting to put forward the idea. Brexit makes it relevant, in terms of our overall response to it, particularly in the area of citizenship. As many of the committee are aware, the passport office is now absolutely overwhelmed.

In the past, someone who needed an emergency passport in the aftermath of a bereavement to travel to England, where one gets nearly two weeks' notice, would have been facilitated by the Passport Office, but now the pressure on the office means it cannot get passports out in such circumstances, even to those who arrive at the counter. For that reason, I think Senator Gallagher's proposal regarding Monaghan is a case well made.