Phil Hogan caught selling Irish passports to foreign Nationals (he doesnt even know)

FINE GAEL TD Phil Hogan has admitted his involvement in the sale of Irish passports to foreign nationals, the Sunday Independent has learned.

Ironically, Mr Hogan's admission came at the height of the controversy he had attempted to engineer over Taoiseach Bertie Ahern's 'fast tracking' of a passport for English businessman Norman Turner.

But while Mr Turner was automatically entitled to an Irish passport, by virtue of his Cork-born mother, those who received assistance from Mr Hogan were not.

Even more embarrassing for the Carlow-Kilkenny TD and Fine Gael, however, is the fact that he doesn't know the names, the number, or even the nationalities of those he helped to gain Irish citizenship through the now defunct Passports for Investment scheme.

The veteran TD was left even more red-faced when pressed further, by KCLR presenter Sue Nunn, on the nationalities of the Irish passport recipients for whom he had made representations.

Asked by Ms Nunn if the passport recipients had come from the Middle East, Mr Hogan began by saying: "I actually. I actually don't know the identities of the people involved, but I know that they've...what I was anxious to secure was..."

That lack of information was met with a frosty response from Ms Nunn, who said: "But they could have been terrorists, for God's sake!"

Absolving himself of any responsibility on that front, the Fine Gael TD shrugged, saying: "Well that's up to the Department of Justice, Foreign Affairs and the Enterprise Ireland to check that."