Passport Data

Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 27 January 2021

Wednesday, 27 January 2021

Questions (411, 413)

Thomas Gould

Question:

411. Deputy Thomas Gould asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the number of persons waiting for passports; and the average wait time by county in tabular form. [4361/21]

John Brady

Question:

413. Deputy John Brady asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the number of standard passport applications on hold awaiting processing; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4390/21]

Written answers

Minister for Foreign Affairs

I propose to take Questions Nos. 411 and 413 together.

At present, there are approximately 40,000 Passport Online applications in the system. Of these, approximately half are from the island of Ireland and half are from the rest of the world. The Passport Service have requested that applicants refrain from submitting documents until we resume operations. Applicants will be notified by e-mail when we resume processing.

There are currently approximately 5,900 paper based applications in the system. The Passport Service plans to resume processing of routine paper based applications such as Passport Express and Northern Ireland Passport Express Level 3 of the framework. These figures are accurate as of 22 January 2021.

The Passport Service has a great deal of experience in dealing with peaks in demand, and we are confident that any backlog will be cleared quickly. When the Passport Service resumed operations in June 2020, the backlog was cleared in four weeks. It was similar in December 2020 with the majority of the backlog cleared within three weeks.

The Passport Service cannot provide average waiting times by county as applications are processed in the order of receipt, not by county. However, we can provide the approximate number of applications per county under process as set out in the table below.

County	Passport Online application under process
Antrim	2,300
Armagh	500
Carlow	150
Cavan	200
Clare	300
Cork	1,400
Derry	700
Donegal	400
Down	1,500
Dublin	5,000
Fermanagh	150
Galway	800
Kerry	350
Kildare	750
Kilkenny	250
Laois	200
Leitrim	100
Limerick	600
Longford	100
Louth	300
Mayo	300
Meath	650
Monaghan	100
Offaly	200
Roscommon	150
Sligo	150
Tipperary	350
Tyrone	550
Waterford	300
Westmeath	250
Wexford	400
Wicklow	450

This is correct to the 20th January 2021.

Question No. 412 answered with Question No. 368.

Question No. 413 answered with Question No. 411.

Question No. 414 answered with Question No. 368.