THE HIGH reputation of the Passport Office is being undermined by current industrial action, the top official in the Department of Foreign Affairs has said.
In a letter sent to passport service staff this week, Iveagh House secretary general David Cooney said it was “painful” to see this reputation undermined, leading to inevitable calls for privatisation. He had personally witnessed staff pulling down the shutters on members of the public, which was something he had never expected to see in the department.
He regretted it had been found necessary to invoke the Civil Service Regulation Act, whereby staff would not be paid for any future period of unauthorised closure of the public office in Dublin’s Molesworth Street.
“The passport service has rightly enjoyed a high reputation for the quality of its service,” states the letter, which is dated March 23rd.
Mr Cooney’s comments came just hours after the Civil Public and Services Union (CPSU) served protective strike notice on the Government, which could take effect in seven days.
The union said the move was triggered by the threat of the Department of Foreign Affairs to dock employees’ pay if they refused to carry out their duties.
However, they stressed strike action would only take place if the Government deducted pay from their members. CPSU members yesterday closed public counters in the Revenue Commissioners, however, sources said that no action was planned for today.
The union is to hold its annual conference in Galway from today.
In his letter to staff, the secretary general of the Department of Foreign Affairs states: “On Friday, I witnessed staff pulling down the shutters in the faces of members of the public, many of whom had been waiting for several hours to be served.
“I did not ever expect to see this happen in the Department of Foreign Affairs, where we have a reputation for going beyond the call of normal duty to assist the public.”
Responding to a suggestion made by a CPSU official that management was acting with “Machiavellian” intentions, Mr Cooney writes: “The management of this department do not and will not play Machiavelli with our staff.”
In addition to issuing his letter, Mr Cooney also appeared before the Foreign Affairs Committee at Leinster House yesterday where he said: “I find the present situation deeply upsetting on a personal basis.”
Describing Passport Office staff as “decent, hard-working people”, some of whom he had worked with for more than 30 years, he said the dispute was not a work-to-rule but a refusal to carry out “core work activities”.
Alan Shatter (FG) said members of the public had “a constitutional right to travel and a constitutional right to have a passport” and the current action was “a gross violation” of those rights.
There was “nothing to stop the Government going into the courts and getting an injunction” to mandate staff to issue passports, Mr Shatter added.
Michael Noonan (FG) said: “This is an industrial relations dispute and it’s a pretty dirty one.” One possible solution might be to authorise the local Garda station to put a stamp on expiring passports to extend their validity for two months, as had been the case with diplomatic passports.
“Travel agents should be allowed to issue a travel certificate for one return journey,” Mr Noonan added.
Independent Senator David Norris said that, speaking as a trade unionist himself, “I don’t enjoy seeing unions making fools of themselves”.
Labour’s Michael D Higgins said it was “important that a link be made” between the passports dispute and the current talks process between the unions and the Government.