Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is very welcome. I got my first passport in 1988. I did not get it in Ireland but in London. I had been forced to emigrate like so many more people at that time. It meant an awful lot to me that I could access an Irish passport as a London-Irish citizen by going to my embassy. It was so long ago I was travelling through a country that no longer exists, Yugoslavia. I find it really strange that we are here 35 years later and people in the Six Counties still have to come down and negotiate Dublin if there is a problem with their passport. I thank the Minister of State for a very detailed response.With the greatest of respect to the Minister of State, I believe he is missing the point because in a republic we believe in accessibility and equality. I support Senator Chambers call for a passport office in the west for the very same reasons. Of course, it would be deeply symbolic and significant for citizens in the North to see an Irish passport office that they can access. That would have a deep symbolism. That is important and I make no apologies for saying that. To regard this debate as an exercise in accounting is genuinely missing the point. We are talking here about one of the most important things that one does as a citizen, which is to access a passport for travel. I agree with every point the Minister of State has made on how good the service is and the Passport Office staff were heroes during an incredibly difficult time over the past couple of years.

Here is the point, however. I spoke to a lady in the North only a couple of months back who had a problem with her application, she could not get through to the office and drove down to Dublin, which was no small task in itself, only to be told that she had to post the documents. The point here is that when one has a problem, that is when one really needs to be able to access someone, that is, a person, to provide help at short notice. Why should a person have to travel to Dublin to do that? The fact that the service has an office in Cork is an acknowledgement in itself that not everything has to revolve through Dublin and be negotiated through the horrendous traffic to get to Dublin city centre. It is not just as justifiable to access an office in the North and, indeed, an office in the west? It makes perfect sense to do just that.

What is particularly significant about this motion, and I see my colleague, Senator Wilson, opposite and I want to give him full credit for this, is that this an issue and an initiative which he began and it commanded cross-party support. Unless I am mistaken, every speaker here this evening has supported the idea of a passport office in the North. The only person who has the demurred from that is the Minister of State.

This Seanad works best when we work on a cross-party basis, when we put together what we share in common and we have done that here on a number of occasions. What is clear here is that on a cross-party basis we support the idea of a passport office in the Six Counties, in the North. Senator Joe O'Reilly put it best of all. My apologies but does Senator Wilson wish to come in here?