Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Last Friday evening, a constituent of mine who has dual citizenship - Canadian and Irish - was on to me. They made their application to the Irish Passport Office. They went up to the Canadian Embassy last Friday evening and they came out with an emergency passport for the child. They could not even get an answer from the Passport Office here in Dublin. They spent weeks and weeks and weeks.

Something has to be done. I agree with my colleague. The Minister is talking about putting the service into Belfast. I would like to see our own citizens in the west of Ireland - my constituents - have it. We have no passport office in the west. In Galway, we have no passport office. We have none in Mayo or Sligo. We have to go to Dublin. If there is a problem, it is up to Dublin. This is making a big profit every year for the Government and the least we should have is a passport office in the west. It is something the Minister should look at.

It is something I have been raising here for the past ten years. Of course, they will not listen in the Department but they will have their own passports. All these ambassadors going all over the world will have their passports.

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