Irish passport

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Irish passport
The front cover of a contemporary Irish biometric passport
Issued by	Ireland
Type of document	Passport
Eligibility requirements	Citizens of Ireland
Expiration	10 years after acquisition for adults, 3 or 5 for children
Cost	€80 (adult 32p) / €110 (adult 66p) / €26.50 (children 3-17) / €16 (children under 3)^[1]

Irish passports are issued by the Consular and Passport Division of the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin, Ireland.

Physical appearance

Irish passports use the standard European Union design, with a machine-readable identity page and 34, 48 or 64 visa pages. The cover bears the harp, the national symbol of Ireland. The words on the cover are in both of Ireland's official languages, Irish and English. The top of the cover page reads An tAontas Eorpach and the equivalent in English, European Union. Just above the harp are the words Éire and its equivalent in English, Ireland. The identity page on older Irish passports was on the back cover of the booklet. Newly issued passports have been redesigned with additional security features. The identity page is now a plastic card attached between the front cover and the first visa page.

The ePassport or biometric passport, was launched on 16 October 2006 with the first ePassports presented that day by the Minister for Foreign Affairs.^[2]

Photo of passport holder, printed in greyscale.
Type (P)
Country (IRL)
Passport No.
1. Surname
2. Forename(s)
3. Nationality (ÉIREANNACH/IRISH)
4. Date of Birth
5. Sex
6. Place of birth (county of birth if born on the island of Ireland (all 32 counties), 3 letter country code of country of birth if born elsewhere.)
7. Date of issue
8. Date of expiry
9. Authority
10. Signature

The information page ends with the machine readable zone starting with P<IRL.

Request page

The passports contain a note on the inside cover which states:

In Irish:

Iarrann Aire Gnóthaí Eachtracha na hÉireann ar gach n-aon lena mbaineann ligean dá shealbhóir seo, saoránach d'Éirinn, gabháil ar aghaidh gan bhac gan chosc agus gach cúnamh agus caomhnú is gá a thabhairt don sealbhóir.

In English:

The Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ireland requests all whom it may concern to allow the bearer, a citizen of Ireland, to pass freely and without hindrance and to afford the bearer all necessary assistance and protection.

Formerly, the request was also made in French, but this has been discontinued in recent years.

Languages

The data page/information page is printed in Irish, English and French. Each detail includes a reference number (e.g. "1 SLOINNE/SURNAME/NOM"). This reference number can be used to look up translations into any other EU language, as all EU passports have the same text layout now.

Security features

The latest Irish passports have security features designed to make them difficult to forge or be mistaken as forgeries. They have also been optimised for machine reading.

The identity page of the passport has been moved to the front of the passport, and is now printed on a plastic card. This allows easier machine reading of the passport, as the official has to spend less time finding the identity page in the passport. The top-right corner of the passport contains the biometric chip, which contains a copy of the information contained on the identity page, and a facial scan of the holder. To prevent unauthorised parties remotely accessing the information stored in the RFID biometric chip, the machine readable zone of the identity page must be scanned to unlock it.^[3] This safeguard is known as Basic Access Control.

The title of the identity page "Éire/Ireland/Irlande" "Pas/Passport/Passeport" is printed in colour-changing ink, which varies from light green to gold-red, depending on the angle of the light shining on it. The background of the identity page is a complex celtic design, with the words "Éire Ireland" occasionally woven into the design.

The identity picture is now greyscale, and is digitally printed onto the surface of the page, rather than the actual photos sent by the applicant being pasted onto the page. The Irish harp is superimposed as a hologram onto the bottom right corner of the photograph. The words "Éire Ireland" are embossed several times into either side of the identity page. This embossing partially covers the photograph as an added security measure. A likeness of the photograph of the applicant is pin-punched into the surface of the identity page, and can be viewed when the identity page is held to light.

Under UV light fluorescing fibres are visible on every page except the data page. Careful examination yields page numbers on the left hand side of the left page, and vice versa for the right hand page. As you progress through the pages the numbers shift downward until on the last page they are near the bottom.

Rights to a passport

Main article: Irish nationality law

Irish passports may be issued to individuals holding Irish nationality; the Republic of Ireland extends its nationality law to Northern Ireland.

All Irish citizens have a constitutional right to an Irish passport, subject to certain limitations.^[4]^[5] Passports are generally valid for 10 years; children may apply for 3- or 5-year passports (depending on their age).

Notable cases of purported fraudulent use

An Irish passport, legitimate or fraudulent, is viewed by many - including intelligence services and journalists - as a highly valuable and 'safe' document due to Ireland's policy of neutrality.^[6]

Oliver North (using the name "John Clancy") a United States Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel and a central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal, carried a false Irish passport while visiting Iran in 1986, as did his fellow covert operatives.^[7]^[8] This was part of a series of events that became known as the Iran–Contra affair.

In December 2005, Ireland's Minister for Justice Michael McDowell accused journalist Frank Connolly of having travelled to Colombia in 2001 on a falsely obtained Irish passport in connection with the group known as the Colombia Three.^[9] Connolly, who worked at the Centre for Public Inquiry, (intended as a public watch-dog organisation), vigorously denied the allegation and in turn accused the Minister of abusing his position.^[10]

On 19 January 2010, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh a senior Hamas military commander was assassinated in Dubai by a team involving at least 11 individuals, three of whom were initially reported as using counterfeit Irish passports.^[11] The number of forged Irish passports used in the killing was later revised upwards to eight following a Garda and Department of Foreign Affairs investigation.^[12] The Irish government responded by expelling a staff member of the Israeli Embassy in Dublin. It stated it considered "an Israeli government agency was responsible for the misuse and, most likely, the manufacture of the forged Irish passports associated with the murder of Mr. Mabhouh."^[13]
In June 2010 it was alleged that one of ten covert sleeper agents of the Russian government under non-official cover in the United States as part of the "Illegals Program" used a forged Irish passport issued in the name of "Eunan Gerard Doherty" to "Richard Murphy."^[14] The Russian embassy in Dublin reportedly declined to comment on the allegations that its officials had used a counterfeit Irish passport.^[15] "Richard Murphy," who later identified himself as Russian national Vladamir Guryev, was repatriated to Russia, along with the other nine members of the Illegals Program, as part of a prisoner exchange.^[16] It later emerged that the passports of up to six Irish citizens may have been compromised by the Russian agents.^[17] This led to the expulsion of a Dublin-based Russian diplomat in February 2011.^[18]

History

The Irish Free State was created in 1922 as a dominion of the British Commonwealth modelled explicitly on the dominion of Canada. At the time dominion status was a limited form of independence and while the Constitution of the Irish Free State referred to citizens of the Free State, the rights and obligations of such citizens were expressed to apply only "within the limits of the jurisdiction of the Irish Free State".^[19] The first time Irish passports were used was by the Irish delegation to the League of Nations in August 1923.^[20]

The Irish Free State first notified the British government that it proposed to issue its own passports in 1923.^[21] The Irish initially proposed that the description they would give their citizens in their passports would be "Citizen of the Irish Free State".^[22] According to a report from The Irish Times the first time that Irish passports were used was by the Irish delegation to the League of Nations in August 1923.^[20] The British Government objected to this. It insisted that the appropriate description was "British subject", because, inter alia, the Irish Free State was part of the British Commonwealth. The Irish government considered the British viewpoint. The Governor-General subsequently informed the British Government that the description that would generally (there were some exceptions) be used would be "Citizen of the Irish Free State and of the British Commonwealth of Nations".^[21] Without reaching agreement, the Irish government issued its first passports to the general public on 3 April 1924,^[23] using this description.

The British Government was not satisfied with this compromise. It instructed its consular and passport officers everywhere, that Irish Free State passports were not to be recognised if the holder was not described in the passport as a "British Subject".^[24] This led to considerable practical difficulty for Irish Free State citizens abroad with many having to obtain British passports in addition to their Irish Free State passports. The British Consular Officers would also confiscate the Irish Free State passports, a practice the Irish authorities regarded as "very humiliating".^[24] The issue continued to be a thorny one until the early 1930s.

In 1939, two years after the adoption of the Constitution of Ireland renaming the state "Ireland" the Irish decided to make significant changes to the form of Irish passports. As a courtesy, the Irish authorities notified the British authorities. In a memorandum dated 1 March 1939 entitled "The Form of Eire Passports", the British Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, Thomas WH Inskip informed his Government of developments which had recently taken place "regarding the form of passports issued by the Government of Eire".^[25] In the memoramdum, the Secretary of State reported that "hitherto [the passports] (which have not, I understand, been amended since 1936 have borne two indications of relationship to the British Commonwealth of Nations". These, the memorandum noted were the reference to the King including his full title in the "request" page; and a front page, where underneath the words "Irish Free State" (in Irish, English and French) appear the words "British Commonwealth of Nations". The proposals notified by the Irish authorities included replacing the reference to "Irish Free State" with "Ireland"; amending the "request" page to drop reference to the King; and dropping the reference to the "British Commonwealth of Nations". The Secretary of State proposed that he reply to the Irish authorities in terms that "His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom greatly regrets the proposed elimination of the King's name from Eire passports; that in their view, the omission, when it comes to be known, is bound to create a bad impression in the UK and to widen the separation which Mr de Valera deplores between Eire and Northern Ireland".^[25] The Secretary of State noted in his memorandum that to "say more than this might raise questions [relating to whether or not Ireland was still in the Commonwealth] which it was the object of the statement of the 30th December 1937, to avoid". This was a reference to the communique published by Downing Street noting the adoption of the Irish Constitution, stating that in their view Ireland continued to be part of the Commonwealth and affirming the position of Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom.^[25]

Ultimately, the Irish proceeded with their plans including that the term "Citizen of the Irish Free State and of the British Commonwealth of Nations" would be replaced with "Citizen of Ireland". This has remained the description up to present time, with current Irish passports describing the holder as a "citizen of Ireland" on the request page and giving the holder's nationality as "Eireannach/Irish" on the information page.

"Sale" of passports in 1988-1998

A 1988 scheme was designed to draw foreign investment into Ireland, described in a 1998 Seanad debate as the "Passports for investment scheme"^[26] Each had to invest $1,000,000 and live in Ireland for varying periods. The scheme was scrapped in 1998.^[27] Before long it was being described as the "sale" of passports in the media, but only 143 passports were passed on under the scheme. Notable applicants included some of the Getty family,^[28] Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz and Khalid Sabih Masri. Masri had lent IR£1,100,000 to the petfood company of then-Taoiseach Albert Reynolds.^[29]

Another was Norman Turner from Manchester, whose proposed investment was to build a casino in Dublin's Phoenix Park. Turner had entertained Bertie Ahern and had paid £10,000 in cash to his party, and received his passport later in 1994.^[30] The matter was revealed during the Mahon Tribunal hearings in 2008; Mr Ahern commented that Mr Turner had an Irish mother, and that in 2007 some 7,000 other passport applications were assisted in some way by politicians.^[31]

The 2006 Moriarty Tribunal report covered the grant of passports to a Mr Fustok and some of his friends. Mr Fustok had previously bought a yearling horse from the then Taoiseach Charles Haughey for IR£50,000. The Tribunal considered that "The explanation advanced for the payment, namely that it was in consideration for the purchase of a yearling, is highly unconvincing and improbable".^[32]

Passport-granting officials have also sold passports illegally, notably Kevin McDonald working in London, who had sold "hundreds" of passports to criminals for up to £15,000 each in the 1980s, grossing $400,000. McDonald was prosecuted in 1989 and was sentenced to 21 months in jail.^[33]^[34]