Passport renewal a costly exercise for emigrants

IT was amusing to read of the recent use of fake Irish passports in various international capers.

This week, while trying to renew my presumably legitimate Irish passport at the Irish consulate in Chicago I learned that it costs almost twice as much as it does to renew an American passport and that it could take up to 10 weeks to process my application.

Reassuringly, though, I was reminded that the veracity of my application and accompanying photographs would have to be witnessed either by a member of the clergy, a bank manager or an accountant, among others. With such pillars of society monitoring the issue of one of our most important civic documents, why worry?