Ms Siobhan Byrne:

The role of the passport service is to facilitate the issuance of a travel document following the necessary Acts. The process we follow, as has been mentioned, is very robust in order to ensure that all parties are safeguarded in the process. We would not deal with policy in relation to the process; we are simply facilitators of the issuance of a travel document. Our primary concern is to make sure that all parties are safeguarded and that is achieved through the robustness of the process that is followed.