A man accused of trying to sell fake Irish passports in a newspaper has failed in a bid to block his extradition to Britain.
Michael Fallon (51), of Carysfort Hall, Blackrock, who has dual Irish and British citizenship, is wanted in connection with an alleged attempt to sell forged passports through an advertisement in the International Herald Tribune.
The passports, issued in the name of Irish children who died in infancy, were sold for €12,000.
Mr Fallon, who is in custody in Cloverhill Prison, faces a charge of conspiracy to defraud the British Passport Agency by the provision of false passport applications.
Last month Mr Justice Michael Peart ruled that arrest warrants issued by British police for the extradition of Mr Fallon were valid.
The High Court today rejected an application on his behalf for his release under Section 40 of the Constitution.
Mr Fallon's defence is fighting the State application for extradition on the grounds that British arrest warrants were "void and unlawful" as a result of a recent decision by the Supreme Court in Dublin.
At an earlier hearing, the High Court was told in a warrant issued by a Bow Street magistrate in London that British police believed Mr Fallon and alleged co-conspirators advertised passports for sale in the International Herald Tribune.
British police claimed that once a customer made contact, they were offered a choice of suitable names and dates of birth from a list.
After supplying a passport photograph and a signed blank passport application form, these were accompanied by a duplicate birth certificate of a child who had died in infancy and who never had a passport.
British police claimed in the warrant the scam had been exposed by the ITV Granada television investigative journalism show Tonight with Trevor McDonaldin 1999.