Ninety five cases of suspected passport fraud have been referred to the gardaí by the Department of Foreign Affairs over the past two and a half years.
The Passport Office also refused sixty eight different applications from individuals where they had concerns over potential fraud or believed somebody was seeking to steal somebody’s identity.
Figures from the Department of Foreign Affairs reveal as well how 1,095 passports have been stolen from Irish citizens in the period since the beginning of 2021.
There were also 1,343 instances of damaged passports and 9,333 cases where passports were reported lost or disappeared by the holder.
The number of passports going missing has risen sharply this year with 5,392 reports made between January and June of 2023 compared to just 457 for the entirety of 2021, when strict COVID-19 restrictions on travel remained in place.
There has also been a similarly steep rise in cases of passports getting stolen with 583 incidents logged in the first six months of this year compared to only 79 total for 2021.