Failure to divulge passport figures under attack

THE Government’s failure to reveal the number of passports issued to people of Irish decent is “deeply suspicious” in light of the upcoming citizenship referendum, the Labour Party said yesterday.

The party made a written request to Foreign Affairs Minister Brian Cowen for the number of passports issued by Irish embassies to people of Irish descent from 1997 to date.

The minister’s reply merely stated that the current passport issuing system cannot produce such information, according to Labour’s Justice spokesman Joe Costello who said, “I find this, on the one hand, hard to believe and, on the other, deeply suspicious. It defies credibility that such information is not readily available.”