Children travelling to US will require their own passport

PARENTS of toddlers travelling to the United States later this year will have to buy individual passports for their children under new regulations being introduced by Washington.

From October 1 next, all Irish passport holders visiting the US will require an individual machine readable passport to avail of the US visa waiver programme. Otherwise they must obtain a visa, in advance, from their nearest US Diplomatic or Consular Mission.

Children, including infants, who are endorsed on a parent's passport must have an individual machine readable passport or else obtain a visa in the parent's passport.

Under the US Visa Waiver Programme, passport holders from 27 countries, including Ireland, may enter the US without a visa for travel or business purposes for a maximum period of 90 days.

Most passports issued by the Passport Offices in Dublin and Cork and the Irish Embassy in London, representing over 90% of all passports in circulation, are machine readable and holders of such passports are unaffected by the new US requirements.

However, those with hand-written passports and children endorsed on a parent's passport will have to be issued new passports. The current cost of a 10-year adult passport is €57 and a child's three-year individual passport costs €12.

* Information is available on the Department of Foreign Affairs website www.irlgov.ie/iveagh or the US Embassy website at http://www.usembassy.ie/consulate/mrpassports.html