Nearly 13,000 recently issued Irish passports are being recalled after they were found to not be fully compliant with international travel standards, Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said.
Irish citizens who travel with a passport issued between Dec. 23 and Jan. 6 may encounter problems at border control because of a “technical issue with a software update,” the department said on its website. A total of 12,904 passports were affected, a government spokeswoman said on Saturday.
The department did not say what made the recalled passports not compliant, but The Irish Times reported that they were missing the letters “IRL.”
“The Passport Service sincerely regrets this issue and apologizes to affected citizens for the inconvenience caused,” the department said. “The Passport Service has contacted border authorities worldwide to alert them to this issue.”
Officials urged affected passport holders to request their passports be reissued as soon as possible to avoid problems while traveling. After the defective passports are returned to the country’s Passport Service, a new passport will be issued within 10 working days, the foreign affairs department said.
It was not immediately clear how many Americans with Irish passports were affected. The government spokeswoman said that the Passport Service does not keep track of passport applicants who have citizenship in other countries.
Americans who were not born in Ireland can apply to become Irish citizens through the Foreign Births Register if one of their grandparents was born in Ireland, or a parent was an Irish citizen at the time of their birth. Nearly one in 10 U.S. residents claimed Irish ancestry in 2021, and approximately 120,000 U.S. residents reported Ireland as their birthplace, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
There were more than 11,600 foreign birth registrations from the United States in 2024, a 50 percent increase from the previous year, according to RTÉ, Ireland’s national broadcaster. Once a person is entered into the Foreign Births Register, they are an Irish citizen and can apply for an Irish passport.
Ashley Ahn covers breaking news for The Times from New York.
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