Your question is a bit confusing. Is your son an Irish citizen? Why is he getting a passport in California?

Here is the information from the Irish Consulate:
http://www.consulateofirelandsanfrancisco.org/home/index.aspx?id=35641

We live in Hawaii, but had our friend who is a pastor in Calif sign as our witness and he signed the application with no additional paperwork.
We went thru the consulate in San Francisco.

After we received our citizenship by desent the same pastor signed our Euro passport app and pictures.
Once again without any additional paperwork.

I haven't gone through all of this info - but presumably they are asking that one of these people - who needs to sign the form - can confirm that your son is who he says he is - that is, they know him. Doesn't he have anyone in those categories who knows him?

Like getting a US Passport for the first time - you used to have someone with you to testify they knew you were you.

Agree - not sure why he is getting one in CA - unless on the basis of parent's birth.

Why don't you try the police, at least they are used to checking people's identity. The problem is that you are asking that person to confirm someone's identity and maybe a lot of people don't want to do that. If he is a regular church member, that sounds good. I'm sure you can find some lawyer to do it for a fee, look in the ads for ambulance chasers.

Thanks for the replies everyone! To answer, my son is an Irish citizen by being born to 2 Irish born parents, however, he was born in California. He wants to get his Irish passport so he can stay in Ireland, or any EU country, for longer than 3 months. And also can enter customs through the EU counters which are usually much shorter lines, if any. He has gotten a certified copy of his father's birth cert and the other requirements. Just needs the witness signature now.

And yes, the purpose of the witness signature is to verify that he is who he is. He does attend church regularly and so we are hoping the priest will sign it for him.

I have this problem every ten years when renewing my British passport. They have a similar list. Nowadays we tend to ask DH's boss company director) to countersign. They prefer another UK citizen, but that is impossible for us. The UK passport people accept that. They accept someone with standing in society. Basically they sign to say the photo looks like me, and they know who I am.
Not sure what we'll do next time, when DH is retired!

Do you not have an Irish passport holder on your local government who would sign this form?