Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 25 October 2011
101 Deputy Catherine Byrne asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if passport application forms have been amended to show the €65 fee for passports for citizens aged over 65 years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31377/11]
View answerIn December 2010 the previous Government decided that the free facility, which provided those citizens who were aged 65 and over with a 10 year passport free of charge, would be withdrawn. Since 11 April 2011, these citizens must pay the standard adult fees for their selected passport service. Notice of this and other fee changes were published on the Department's website www.passport.ie and in advertisements in the national press. Current fee information is also available from public notices which are generally displayed in Garda Stations, Post Offices and Passport Offices.
A new print run of application forms and information form notes was issued this summer. The information form notes advise applicants to check the amount of the fee for their requested passport service from these notices when they are applying for passports. This is important as the payment of the wrong fee will delay the processing of their application.
The newly amended information form notes do not include passport fee details. The decision to omit this was based on the following considerations:
(1) The levels of passport fees are reviewed on a regular basis and it would not represent good value for money to have to destroy the existing stock of unused and widely distributed application form notes and replace them with a new version any time there is a fee change.
(2) There is no effective way of updating fee information on the stocks that are in use all over the world at the time of a fee change. Outdated information on these forms has resulted at times in delayed passport delivery.
Applicants are advised to first check the current fees on the Passport Office website or at the Post Office or Garda Station.
It should be noted that the current adult fee for a regular passport is €80 for Passport Express, which is the passport service that is jointly operated by the Department with An Post, and €95 for those applications that are made at a Passport Office or submitted through regular postal services, including registered post.
