Mark Hennessy
and Christine Newman
Irish people who need to travel to the US will not have to renew their passports before next October, unless they have a handwritten document issued by an Irish embassy.
The US authorities now insist that all passports should be capable of being scanned by machines from October 26th next. But citizens from countries meeting this timetable will continue to be able to enter the US without a visa, as long as the personal details are printed and not hand-written.
"Our passports have been machine-readable since 1993," a Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman said last night.
"The only exceptions now would be those passports that were issued by embassies. They would be handwritten and the Americans are saying that they will no longer be acceptable," he added. Passports will no longer be issued by embassies once a new passport office in Balbriggan, Co Dublin, opens later this year.
The new €22 million facility will be able to include biometric details of citizens, such a record of their iris, fingerprints, etc., though the Government has not yet decided how much information will be stored on passports.
"The new passport will contain a polycarbonate (stiff plastic) page to hold the personal data of the bearer and this datapage will be capable of incorporating a microchip containing biometric information.
"It will, accordingly, be possible to move relatively quickly to the stage of producing biometric passports if a decision to this effect is taken by the Government," the Department's spokesman said.
The International Civil Aviation Organisation has recommended facial recognition be stored in chips. Ireland is one of the few countries ready to go ahead with the implementation of biometric passports once agreement is reached.