REACTION:BY MID-AFTERNOON, the long queues outside the Passport Office on Molesworth Street in Dublin had dissipated but inside, the anger of those queuing had not.
Upstairs the atmosphere in the passport collection area was tense. The machines had stopped issuing tickets, causing further consternation among an already frustrated crowd.
“You wouldn’t treat cattle the way we’ve been treated today,” said one woman, who would only be named as Margaret. “I ain’t moving. If I have to, I ain’t going to eat and I ain’t going to drink until that passport is put into my hands.”
Aoife Carr from Donegal had taken the 5.30am bus from Letterkenny to be told she would not get her passport for a €2,300 holiday, which she was supposed to start tomorrow and which was now effectively cancelled.
Kerry Kavanagh had taken three days off work in order to queue for her passport. “They told me that they’re looking for it and they’re looking for it since 12 o’clock.”
Passport Office staff, who looked ashen-faced as they dealt with wave after wave of public frustration, were gaining no sympathy on the far side of the counter.
“They shouldn’t be getting paid – our taxes shouldn’t be paying them,” Fiona Lynch said as she waited for a passport in order to visit her five-year-old son who lives in America.
“I employ six people. They have all took a reduction in their wages ... so if them people I employ can do it, why can’t they?” her partner JJ McNamee added.
James Stanley from Dublin said: “See this work to rule – you win nothing on a work to rule. They should have the balls to come out and strike full time. People would know where they stand then. I wouldn’t have parted with my money if there was an all-out strike.”
Phyllis Grogan, who was to collect a passport for her daughter so they could travel to Disneyworld in Florida on Saturday, was visibly upset as she walked away from a confrontation with counter staff.
“I really feel that with the recession on at the moment, there’s so much unemployment, there’s so many cuts in people’s wages, they should be lucky that they have a secure, pensionable job,” she said.
Those queuing glanced enviously at brown envelopes which appeared periodically at the counters. Many walked out in frustration after run-ins with counter staff.
Almost an hour and a half after the office officially closed, five members of the public refused to leave. Only when the director of the Passport Office Joseph Nugent came down and gave each of them an idea of where their individual cases stood did they agree to vacate the office.
Even then they still didn’t seem confident of their prospects. “I won’t be happy until I have that passport in my hand,” said one.