Eire’s Division of Overseas Affairs has recalled practically 13,000 passports after a software program replace prompted a printing defect.
The printing error makes the paperwork non-compliant with worldwide journey requirements and probably unreadable at automated border gates.
Lacking ‘IRL’ code
The federal government mentioned the affected passports, issued between December 23 and January 6, could fail at eGates and border management techniques worldwide, prompting a world alert by the Worldwide Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and a mass re-issuance program.
“The Passport Workplace has confirmed that 12,904 Irish passports issued between 23 December 2025 and 6 January 2026 [inclusive] could not totally meet worldwide journey requirements,” introduced the federal government.
“The difficulty was attributable to a software program replace, which might have an effect on use at border management or eGates.”
Holders are being requested to return their passport books (and playing cards, the place relevant) free of charge alternative, with new paperwork to be issued inside roughly 10 working days.
“This may make sure that you don’t face any points with future journey. You don’t want to reapply for a brand new passport,” the official discover states.
Whereas the Division of Overseas Affairs has not explicitly specified the place the lacking “IRL” seems, the reference to ICAO compliance and potential failures at eGates strongly suggests the error impacts the machine-readable zone (MRZ), the place the three-letter issuing-state code is obligatory beneath ICAO Doc 9303.
(Authorities of Eire)
What’s an MRZ?
The MRZ is the two-line block of textual content on the backside of the passport’s bio web page that’s scanned by airline techniques, border management kiosks, and eGates. It encodes essential knowledge such because the doc kind, issuing nation, passport quantity, nationality, date of beginning, and checksums used to confirm the doc’s integrity.
If the issuing-state code “IRL” is lacking or malformed on this zone, automated techniques could reject the passport outright, even when the visible biographical web page and embedded chip seem regular.
These travelling imminently or abroad residents can get in contact wih the Passport Workplace customer support by way of electronic mail at passportreturn@dfa.ie or name +353 (0) 1 613 1780.
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