A briefcase containing a number of Irish passports was found dumped in the grounds of a Dublin city centre business, gardai have confirmed. One of the people who discovered the case said it contained blank passports as well as completed ones, but yesterday a Garda spokesman said only completed passports were found.
The eyewitness claimed that when the case was discovered last October, it contained about 15 passports. Some included photographs, and names suggesting they were for people of Indian or Pakistani origin. But others were blank, the eyewitness said.
After initially saying it had no record of any such passports being found, the Garda acknowledged yesterday that a briefcase containing some bank books and a handful of Irish passports belonging to an Indian family was stolen from a car and the passports were returned the same day.
Supt John Farrelly of the Garda Press Office said he was satisfied no blank passports were found.
A Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman said the Department was "adamant" there were no passports or documents missing from the passport system. He expressed serious concern about the matter as the Department had received no report of the incident.
"In the normal course of events, the Passports Office would be immediately informed of any passports being found," he said.
The expensive briefcase was found in a car park at premises off Capel Street on the morning of October 8th last.
When a group of employees opened it in an attempt to identify the owner, they discovered up to 10 Irish passports belonging to people they thought were foreign nationals. An eyewitness claims there were also five blank passports.
The completed passports were EU-style, and had passport numbers pierced into them. The names of the men and women suggested they were of Pakistani origin.
The case also contained two foreign bank books, the names of which corresponded with names on the passports. There were also a number of unfilled passport application forms, the eyewitness alleged.
"Most of the passports that were filled in looked like old passports because some had a couple of stamps in them. The empty ones were brand spanking new - no pictures, no date, nothing," said the eyewitness, who asked to remain anonymous.
The discovery was reported to gardai and the case was handed over to a detective, the eyewitness said.
When first contacted by The Irish Times about the incident, the Garda Press Office said it could trace no record of any passports having been found in that area of the city, or of a call from the business premises where it was found.
However, Supt Farrelly confirmed yesterday that a case containing passports was found. He said there were fewer than five passports, which belonged to members of the same family, but no blank passports were found in the case.