- Irish passports sought by 740,000 people
- DFA anticipate a million passports a year will be issue by 2020
Irish passports were sought by 740,000 people in the year to December 21. Of these 65,136 of those were from residents of Northern Ireland and another 59,377 from residents of Britain.
May was the busiest month with 96,356 applications came in. In the months after the British referendum on EU membership the number of new applicants rose 17,300 compared to the same period in 2015. One in four people in Britain is said to have Irish heritage. In the days following the Brexit vote offices ran out of Irish passport application forms.
The Department of Foreign Affairs said 25,000 applied for the new passport sized card this year,. The card is accepted in 31 countries..
Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan said: “ 75pc of the take up for the passport card is male. We would like to see more women, and more people in general availing of that.”
“It’s been a very busy and challenging year for the passport office, but I’m pleased to say that they’ve met all challenges presented to them. There was increased demand for a variety of reasons – the Euros, the Olympics and I acknowledge that Brexit may have played a significant role. I do stress, however, that we don’t know for certain, as we don’t ask people why they want a passport, merely whether or not they’re eligible for one. Our DFA travel wise app has also been a huge success – downloaded by nearly 10000 people.”
According to a survey of visa restrictions by Henley & partners, Ireland has the 15th most valuable passport in the world. The value of a passport is determined by the countries to which you can travel with that passport, without visas. A separate survey by Arton Capital estimated Ireland has the joint 19th most acceptable passport in the world.
