Record Issuing of Irish Passports

The passport office tweeted the milestone: “Wow, we have just broken a new record, over 700,000 Passports have been issued so far this year! #RecordBreaker”.

Last year, nearly 670,000 Irish passports were issued.

There has been a huge increase in applications from Great Britain and Ireland since the UK voted to leave the European Union in June.

An Irish passport allows its holder to continue to move and work without limitations within other EU member states once the UK withdraws.

The most recent 2016 figures available are up until the end of October, and they show that there were 635,635 passport applications, compared to 566,142 in 2015.

The amount of those applications from Northern Ireland was 59,043, up 27% from 2015. Regarding Great Britain applications, the figure was 58,015, up 42% from 2015.

The Passport Service had already seen an increase in demand prior to Brexit, due to an increase in outbound travel, the Euro 2016 football championships and new US travel requirements for biometric passports.

Anybody with a parent or grandparent born in Ireland are among those who can apply for an Irish passport.