Sheila Terry (Fine Gael)

It has taken all this time and many occurrences in the meantime to bring us to this day when something is being done about it.

The worst aspect of it was the passports for sale scheme. I do not have a figure for how many passports were sold in this manner. Perhaps the Minister could supply it. It was dreadful how the criteria for granting these passports were ignored. In approximately 20 cases a declaration of loyalty to the State and fidelity to the nation was not sworn. It is appalling that somebody would be granted a passport and not have that loyalty. How could they, when the passports were given out in that fashion to anybody who would invest in the State?

The soft option loans for which citizenship was given was also an appalling state of affairs, one of which the Minister was extremely critical. One thinks of the Mahfouz application in which, as the Minister said, there was scant regard for fulfilling the citizenship requirements. That occurred when former Deputy Ray Burke was Minister. The former Minister, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, was greatly alarmed at the manner in which those passports were given out.

If this loophole is not closed, one can envisage further appalling situations arising and they might not happen when the Minister's party is in Government with Fianna Fáil. In a way it is good that the Minister climbed the poles in Dublin to tell us not to let Fianna Fáil have it all to themselves. If we were to leave it to them, who knows when the sale of passports might re-emerge without this loophole being closed?