TWO FURTHER counterfeit Irish passports used in the assassination of a Hamas leader in January in Dubai have come to light, bringing the total number of Irish passports involved to eight.
Six of the counterfeit Irish passports had valid Irish passport numbers, while another two contained numbers which had never been issued, according to the head of the passport office.
Joe Nugent, director of passport services, said authorities in Ireland, the UK and Australia had considered a recall of passports after counterfeit passports were used in the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel.
“The documents used in Dubai related to a particular type of passport document that is no longer produced,” Mr Nugent said, noting the passports used in the assassination were the old paper-based documents, which are nowhere near as sophisticated as the current Irish passport.
Since 2006 the passport office has issued a machine-readable ePassport with a biometric chip for security purposes. It has other security features including holograms and a greyscale digital photograph of the holder. The main page has a polycarbonate surface that is next to impossible to alter undetected, making it much more difficult to forge.
Mr Nugent said the authorities here had briefly considered recalling the old passports after the Dubai killing, but it became clear that this was unfeasible.
“We looked at whether it was practical to withdraw all passports issued prior to 2005,” Mr Nugent said, adding this proved “completely impractical” due to the estimated two million such passports still in circulation. He said he had personally met all six individuals whose passport numbers were used fraudulently in connection with the Dubai killing, and that the Department of Foreign Affairs has issued new passports and new passport numbers to them.
He said most counterfeit passports brought to the attention of authorities were of low quality.
“We would see many crude attempts to forge passports, but in most cases it’s people who are trying to get into nightclubs, and perhaps these individuals aren’t aware of the seriousness of what they’re doing,” he said.
A total of 34,622 Irish passports were reported stolen or lost last year, the Department of Foreign Affairs said, and 134 people were detained for trying to travel on Irish passports which had been reported lost or stolen. Most were people who tried to travel on their own passports after having reported them lost or stolen.
A total of 579,508 Irish passports were issued last year, with revenue of €31.9 million collected through the passport system.