There has been a 550% increase in the number of cases of suspected passport fraud in the past two years.
More than 500 cases were investigated by the Passport Service last year.
The Department of Foreign Affairs says that since 2017 large resources have been invested in the integrity section of the Passport Service to clamp down on fraud - including an increase in staff and a large investment in technology.
Details released to Newstalk under the Freedom of Information Act reveal a sharp rise in the number of passport fraud detections since then.
Image: Department of Foreign AffairsIn 2016, the Passport Service investigated 78 suspected cases - but that rose to 504 last year.
A further 240 cases were under investigation in the first six months of this year.
Since 2016, a total of 237 of these cases have been forwarded to the gardaí.
The number of passports cancelled because of suspected fraud has increased by 71% over the past two years.
It increase from 76 in 2016 to 130 last year, with a further 46 cancelled by the Passport Service in the first half of this year.
The Department of Foreign Affairs said: "The Passport Service takes all types of fraud very serious within the service.
"To this end the Passport Service has endeavoured to improve all aspects of detection to protect the integrity of the Irish passport."
They add: "Figures recording the instances of fraud will not correlate to the figure reported to An Garda Síochana.
"This occurs due to cases of suspected fraud being resolved within the [Passport Service's Integrity Section] while other matters may not have reached the threshold to permit them to be reported to An Garda Síochana."
