Need for gardaí to sign passports to be reviewed

It’s every holidaymaker’s nightmare — realising just a couple of days before they are due to travel that their passport is out of date.

Cue panic to get exactly the right photographs (no smiling, no hair bands, correct dimensions, correct lighting, correct angle, eyes wide open, no skin blotches, right glasses positioning, etc), before getting the application for a new document and the photographs signed by a garda before rushing it into the nearest passport office as quickly as humanly possible.

The second part of that tortuous and nerve-wracking process could well be about to be phased out with the Government confirming that it has launched a review of the need for the garda to witness the document.