- - Minister Flanagan welcomes prestigious award for the Irish Passport Card
- - Minister says that Ireland is taking a leading role in implementing measures to improve global passport security
- - Minister encourages travellers, particularly those planning on travelling to France for Euro2016, to apply for Passport Cards
The Minister for Foreign Affairs & Trade, Mr. Charlie Flanagan TD, has welcomed the awarding of the Best Regional ID Document to the Irish Passport Card at the High Security Printing Europe Conference held in in Bucharest from 14-16 March.
Speaking from New York, where he is representing the Government at the annual St. Patrick’s Day events, Minister Flanagan said:
“The awarding of this prestigious industry award to Ireland for the Passport Card, which I launched last October, is a significant and well-deserved peer- acknowledgement of an Irish-led and Irish-designed project. I would like to extend my congratulations to all involved in the development of the card and in particular DLRS and Absolute Graphics of Bray, HID Ireland of Baile na hAbhainn and Purple Pod of Navan.
“This award recognises that Ireland is at the cutting edge of technological and security developments in the increasingly important and challenging area of identification documentation. As we prepare to Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and to promote Ireland’s interests across the globe, the award is also a timely reminder of what Irish-led creative thinking and innovation can achieve at a global level.
“Ireland previously won this award in 2014, for the new Irish passport, and yesterday’s award is yet further confirmation that Ireland, and the Passport Service of the Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade, is taking a leading role in implementing measures to improve global passport security.
“The Passport Card has already been a huge success, with 17,500 cards issued since last October, and I would hope that this award and acknowledgement of its technological and security features would encourage more people to apply for a card.
“I would like to take this opportunity to particularly encourage the many thousands of people who will be travelling to France for the Euro2016 finals in June to consider applying for this very user-friendly card.”
Note for Editors:
Ireland was a joint-winner of the award, along with Spain, for the latest version of Spain’s national ID system.
The High Security Printing Europe Conference is an annual event that focuses on government-specified and issued documents in the region. These include currency, fiduciary documents, excise stamps, ID cards, e-passports, visas, vehicle documents and licences, with a particular emphasis on banknotes and the emerging technologies for ID and travel documents. The Regional ID of the Year Award is one of only two awards presented annually at the Conference, the other being the Regional Banknote of the Year Award. It is one of three such regional conferences held annually, the others taking place in Asia and Latin America.
Passport Card:
Citizens must be over 18 years of age to apply for a passport card.
Citizens must be in possession of a valid passport book to apply for a passport card.
Passport card personal details must be exactly as they are on the applicant’s passport book.
The card has a maximum validity of 5 years or the remaining validity of the passport book. There must be at least 30 days validity on the passport book.
The application fee is €35 plus a credit card transaction cost. Additional delivery costs outside Ireland are approximately €5.
Applications will be received online via the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website (www.dfa.ie/passportcard) or through the free app for smart phones and tablet devices which is available in iOS (via Apple App Store), Android (via Google Play Store) and Microsoft (via Windows Store) formats
The Passport Service has the capacity to process 3,000 Passport Card applications per week. Currently cards are processed in approximately 10 working days
The passport card is valid for entry into the following thirty countries:
EU Countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the UK.
The European Economic Area (EEA): The EEA includes EU countries and also Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
Citizens can use the card alone for travel to these countries but the Passport Book must be used for all other foreign travel, including to the United States.
Further information on the application process can be found at www.dfa.ie/passportcard
The passport card represented the culmination of co-operation among some of Ireland's leading technology and security companies. This project is leading the way in secure MRTD deployment and further demonstrates that Ireland is at the cutting edge of innovation in the technological arena. The consortium comprised both large and small companies, led by DLRS, with security design and APP development supplied by Absolute Graphics in Wicklow and Purple Pod in Meath. The final product is a state-of-the-art polycarbonate supplied by HID in Galway.
The passport card enrolment process relies on cutting edge technology that adheres to the highest levels of security to ensure that applicants are safe and secure at all times while applying for their card. The software solution was developed to work across a number of mobile platforms including iOS, Android and Windows Phone and also features a secure website for desktop users. The enrolment process allows users to submit a passport compliant photo taken on mobile phones or upload a suitable photo on the website where advanced biometric algorithms will test each one to ensure ICAO Standards are reached. Once all verification checks have been achieved, the user can pay their fees through the secure payment portal.