A TOTAL of 72,000 Irish passports were issued to people not born in this country last year, the Department of Foreign Affairs has confirmed. The department said it was not concerned about the volume of Irish passports being issued around the world. A spokeswoman said: "A significant amount of these would relate to people from the US or from the UK. There are criteria to qualify for a passport and all of these people would have met those conditions."

Citizens of almost every country in the world were issued with Irish passports last year, a breakdown by nationality shows.

The largest number were from the UK, where 32,131 people born in England, Scotland and Wales applied for a passport. Another 13,202 passports were issued to people born in the US, 4,187 to Australians, 2,440 to New Zealanders and 2,106 to Canadians.

Of the 4,041 passports issued to South Africans last year, many did not involve the descendants of Irish emigrants. One senior garda said: "These would be people who might have applied for asylum, had married an Irish citizen or otherwise sought naturalisation at some point."

Asylum seekers from a number of other African countries also successfully applied for Irish passports, the Department of Foreign Affairs said. A total of 271 people born in Nigeria qualified for citizenship last year in spite of the low rate of success in applying for refugee status by individuals from that country. Around 700 people from India and Pakistan were also granted Irish passports along with 72 from the DR Congo, 130 from Egypt, 171 from Kenya and 189 from Israel.

Most remarkable were the 1,004 people from Zimbabwe, many of whom had long-standing Irish heritage, who were granted passports. A source in the Department of Foreign Affairs explained: "You may have a large community of people who are entitled to Irish citizenship but have never taken up the option. If the political system in their country becomes unstable or a war begins, you may then have a glut of applications."

More than 50% of all the Irish passports handed out last year went to people born in other European states. Of the 71,212 applicants, only 9.4% were from Africa and just 0.79% hailed from South America.