Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 12 July 2022
517. Deputy Steven Matthews asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if his attention has been drawn to the case (details supplied) of a Zimbabwean national with Irish citizenship who had his or her personal documentation sent to the South African embassy in Dublin as part of an application for an Irish passport; if there is a basis for this process; and if he will clarify the pathway for a passport application for someone in this position. [37841/22]
View answerWith regard to the specific application about which the Deputy has enquired, the Passport Service did not send the applicant's documents to the South African embassy in Dublin, or have any contact with that embassy in relation to the application. The Passport Service emailed scanned copies of the applicant's documents to the Embassy of Ireland in Pretoria, South Africa, for verification and authentication purposes. As there is no Irish embassy in Zimbabwe, the Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa covers consular and passport responsibilities for Zimbabwe. It is standard procedure for the Passport Service to email copies of documents to relevant embassies so that document authentication can be carried out.
The Passport Service retained the applicant's documents in a secure environment in the Passport Service offices for the duration of the processing of the application, and has since returned the documents to the applicant.
The Passport Service has issued a passport to the applicant.
