Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)

Deputy Michael D. Higgins was very clear on this. Virtually everything can be appealed in this country and we are very lucky in that regard. If one is not granted a taxi licence or a PSV permit, one can appeal to the District Court and if needs be proceed to the Circuit Court. Whatever a citizen is denied, he or she may appeal, and that is as it should be. An appeals mechanism should ultimately be concerned with an independent person looking at the circumstances. That is what we have in the planning process, under criminal law and to a great extent under common law. However, there is no appeals mechanism for passports, the one thing that ensures Irish citizens travel freely around the world.

I agree with the Minister of State to the effect that Ministers interfere very little in the whole process. However, when they do, there should be some mechanism to which an aggrieved person may appeal, even if it is only the courts, to put his or her case. That is important, because no matter what the circumstances, mistakes can be made. We could reel off mistakes of a fairly substantial nature that have been made in this House. This is not something to be sneezed at. How might one feel if refused a passport and then told there was nowhere to go to appeal this decision? Where does one go, especially if one feels wronged and aggrieved? It must be quite devastating when that happens to someone.

The Minister of State said that very few people have ever been refused a passport. Why not put it into the legislation, then? If it is so rare, there must be very good reasons when people are refused and I am sure any independent body would uphold the Minister's decision in such cases, so why not put it in? We have very sensible people adjudicating every day of the week on far weightier issues than this. I appeal to the Minister of State to rethink his position on this.

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