asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if he has any proposals to open a passport office in Cork.

It is proposed to open a passport office in Cork in January 1987. From the outset, the office will advise personal and telephone callers on passport matters and will accept and check applications for transmission by special courier to the Passport Office in Dublin which will continue to be the main passport issuing office.

Can the Minister give specific reasons for opening a passport office in Cork? Has it a direct bearing on the unemployment rate in the city and emigration from that region?

I assume the Deputy is imputing that there is a direct link between the opening of the passport office in Cork and emigration. If that were so, the highest number of passports issued in the country's history would have been during the Deputy's period in this office.

There is no need to open one then.

The opening of a passport office in Cork is part of the Government's decentralisation policy. We do things. We do not just talk about them, like the party opposite.

There is wholesale unemployment in Cork but all the Minister is offering them are a passport office and the ferry to take them out of the city.

I can understand Deputy Collins's anger at having been caught out by the information that the highest issue of passports ever was when he was last in office. Fianna Fáil were forever preaching about decentralisation but never practising it. We are doing it.