asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the number of applicants for passports who have been refused passports in each of the past five years; the reasons for such refusals; if his Department maintains a list of persons who will not be given passports if they apply; and if he will make a statement about his policy in relation to the right of Irish nationals to travel abroad, other than those who have surrendered their passports as a result of a court order.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Passport Applications.
12.
As the number of applicants refused passport facilities is quite insignificant the need to maintain a register of such refusals does not arise. Apart from the situation in relation to applications for passports from Irish residents in Rhodesia, which has been the subject of a separate question to which I replied on 11 October 1978, passports are refused on legal grounds, such as a court order or refusal of parents' consent in the case of minors. A passport may also be refused to an applicant who, in the experience of the Passport Office arising out of passport facilities granted in the past, is an unfit person to hold another passport at the time of application. A list of persons falling into these categories must necessarily be maintained in the Passport Office.
Successive Governments have regarded the right of Irish nationals to travel abroad as a personal right of each citizen subject however to the limitations I have just mentioned.
Can the Minister tell the House how many names are on the list?
As I told the Deputy it is insignificant and, in any one year, it would not be any more than five.
Can the Minister say under what legal warrant he or his Department restrict the rights of an Irish national to travel abroad without a trial, without appeal, and in the light of a recent court case in which a passport was granted to an illegitimate child?
If a person is a minor the consent of the parents is required.
I am not talking about those cases.
That is a matter of law, if the Deputy is not so aware.
I am talking about cases where the Passport Office make up their own minds.
The Passport Office only apply the law as well settled. The Passport Office do not make the law; they apply it. There are other cases which I should like to mention. Applicants who are subjects of court orders one way or another are also included. People who are resident in Rhodesia and apply for Irish passports are also included. People who are recognised Departmental debtors, who have been advanced money on the basis of travel on previous occasions which was not refunded to the Department are also included but the Department can use their discretion in that case. The list also includes people who have lost three or four passports and approach the Passport Office for a fifth. I am sure the Deputy will appreciate that a question of discretion arises there also. I can assure the Deputy that in all such cases the passport officer goes into great detail and, in the final analysis, if he thinks fit, he reports to me and I make the decision.
What is involved here is not really an exercise in discretion but a kind of Star Chamber system in which the person has no effective right of appeal against a Department acting as judge and jury.
It is quite the opposite and to imply that there is a Star Chamber is doing a disservice to the facilities which are provided under a recognised principle adopted by the Department, that the right of freedom of movement is fundamental right.
Until they take it away it is a right.
Are any of the grounds on which passports are refused statutory or are they all common law grounds or grounds of rule of thumb applied by his own Department?
The ones I mentioned under court order are clear in themselves. For one reason or another a court may impound a passport and refuse it under an order. The Deputy is aware that under the Guardianship of Infants Act parents have rights and to that extent that is statutory. What is or is not a matter of common law is not of any particular significance but, generally, the question is based on the law as it stands. I have mentioned the cases where the Department must use discretion. I am sure that the Deputy, from his own experience, will recognise this.
I am not complaining.
The basis is a formal royal prerogative.
Dr. O'Connell rose.
I am calling the next question and I will not permit the Deputy to ask a further supplementary. I regret to have to do that because the Deputy is usually well behaved.
That type of compliment is very hurtful.
13.
asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs (a) the number of new passport applications made in the first ten months of this year, with comparative figures for the same periods in 1976 and 1977; and (b) a breakdown in respect of these years of the countries named by the applicants as the destination for which passports were required.
The number of new passports issued in the first ten months for each of the years 1976-1978 was as follows: 1976, 76,313; 1977, 76,585; 1978, 98,158. Records are not kept of the destinations named by applicants and it is not possible therefore to answer the second part of the Deputy's question.
While accepting that it will be a lengthy business for the Department to go through 96,000 application forms and take out the information I am looking for I should like to know if the Department have an impression about the areas of destination which applicants for passports have to name when they are first getting a passport—they can go where they like later on? Have the Department any impression about whether they are emigrant passports or whether Spain is having a boom this year because of the spending spree the Government sent the country on?
The Deputy will appreciate that there is a question requesting the address of destination but in many cases applicants are unable to answer that question or put down an answer for general purposes. The Deputy will also appreciate that people applying for passports or renewals will need them for more than one country and for that reason the Department have always accepted that as being a satisfactory reply. Therefore, it is not possible to have anything like an accurate record of destinations; some give a general response and others name six or seven different countries. The Deputy will appreciate that there would be a lot of work for very little purpose if one tried to tabulate even the limited information available.
I accept that but I wanted to discover whether there was any information of the kind which the Department of Economic Planning and Development would need——
The Chair is concerned about the dialogue that takes place across the floor of the House and the Deputy completely ignores the Chair. I am calling the next question.
I completely ignore it when the Chair lets one question go on for a longer period than another and does not permit me to ask a second supplementary.
The Chair is concerned that the Deputy is addressing the Minister directly and completely ignores the Chair. I am not going to permit it and the Deputy will have to leave the House on the next occasion it occurs.
The Chair is very cross to-day.
The Chair is being blamed for lack of progress at Question Time.
I resent the Chair using language like that towards me. I am no worse than Deputies on either side of the House and I feel than when the Chair allows one question to go on for ten minutes and another to go for 15 minutes the Chair is treating me with less than the rights a Deputy is entitled to expect here, particularly when I am not allowed to ask a second supplementary question.
The Chair is concerned with making progress at Question Time but without the co-operation of Deputies that is not possible.
With respect, the Deputy who stepped out of line was Deputy Briscoe and the Chair allowed him to do so.