The Irish Foreign Affairs Department has decided not to recall 2.5 million Irish passports issued before 2005 in the aftermath of the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai earlier this year, when eight forged Irish passports were used by members of the suspected hit team, the daily
Irish Times reported on Friday.
The department's Passport Service had considered recalling the passports after it emerged that all the forged passports were imitations of the Irish passports issued before sophisticated security features were added to the document in 2005.
The recall cost, estimated at 40 million euros, was the prime reason for the decision against issuing a passport recall, according to the Irish Times report. The high estimated cost for the recall was determined based in part on the logistical problems that would be caused by attempting to add 2.5 million passport requests to the current processing load at the Passport Service.
