Time for a firm chat with those Russian spymasters

The cachet of the Irish passport is going up all the time. It was interesting enough when it was the Israeli Secret Assassination Service. Now though it's Russian spies. You don't get better than Russian spies. That's sort of the classic of the genre, the crème de la Kremlin. They'll really be checking me out every time I go to the States now – especially seeing as one of the spies was called Richard Murphy and another was Anna Chapman. There's gonna be red flags all over the board.

I admit, I always fancied myself as a spy. When I applied though I was disappointed to find that you aren't allowed to talk with a thick Russian accent, play the balalaika or throw vodka glasses at the fireplace. They want their Russian spies to try not to look Russian at all, which for me really takes all the fun out of it.

But how is it our ones are so popular? A taxi driver I had – it's always taxi drivers – reckons they must be easy to forge for some reason. And looking over mine, I have to agree. All right, it's almost ten years old (woah, must get that renewed), but there aren't a hell of a lot of anti-forging measures. There are watermarks and a number perforated through the pages, but no hologram, no clever ink or anti-copy pattern like even the five euro note has.

(An aside: Do you know about the anti-copy pattern? It's those yellow stars. Euro notes have it, as does the new colouredy twenty dollar bill and I guess many other currencies around the world. The idea is that if you try to use a computer to scan and print currency it will detect the pattern and refuse it. Since an international agreement, this is in all the latest versions of major graphics software like Photoshop or Paintshop Pro.)

(Hint to forgers: Don't upgrade your graphics software.)

On the other hand though, there is all that Irish on the passport. That's got to be good copy protection in itself, as it's very hard to spell right unless you did well in the Leaving. I scraped a pass, I couldn't spell seven in eight of those words. They're all the sort of long ones you'd only know if you'd prepared for an essay on something political. And frankly, the sort of kid who knows that Gnóthaí Eachtracha means Foreign Affairs does not usually turn to a life of crime. Not when they can walk into a good civil service job.

That makes me think. Of course, the problem is solved if you've got blanks to work with. I wonder if any have ever . . . slipped out of the Department of Foreign Affairs. That would be great, I'd love to get my hands on a blank passport. I could put on a picture that didn't make me look like a terrorist for once. Although perhaps that would be suspicious in itself. But you don't want these to fall into the hands of criminals – or indeed, the hands of supposedly friendly governments.  

We need to have stern words with the Russians. They cannot have our passports. They will have to make do with Certificates of Irish Heritage, like everybody else.