Vol. 425 No. 7
45 Mr. Clohessy asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if his attention has been drawn to the fact that passport charges are a hardship for many Irish travellers within the EC; and whether he is prepared to issue temporary travel cards as is the practice in the United Kingdom.
The cost of a standard 32-page passport, which is valid for ten years, is £45. In general, I do not feel that this charge — equivalent to an annual cost of £4.50p — can be considered unreasonable. However, I am conscious that the level of the fee may cause hardship for certain categories of applicants. To lessen this hardship the Passport Office has introduced a number of special provisions: a three year passport, which costs £10.00, is available for persons under 18 or over 65 years of age; a collective passport, which cost £45.00, is available for groups of young people of over 5 and under 50 persons, who are travelling on educational, cultural or pilgrimage purposes to certain countries; a collective passport is also available for groups of invalid pilgrims travelling to Lourdes; a low-season fee of £35.00 was introduced on a trial basis last year for applicants who apply for their passports during October and November. The campaign proved very successful and I hope to see it continued this year.
I have no plans to introduce a scheme similar to the British visitor's passport.
