Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 13 July 2021
377. Deputy Jennifer Carroll MacNeill asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the approximate number of passport applications left to process to fully clear the Covid-19 backlog; the speed with which he expects foreign birth registrations to resume; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37368/21]
View answerMy Department is responsible for citizenship by descent through the Foreign Births Register. Prior to COVID-19 it took twelve to eighteen months to process applications. This was due to the complex nature of FBR applications and the very high volume of applications due to Brexit.
At present, there are just over 30,000 applications in the Foreign Births Registration (FBR) system that await processing. In 2020, over 16,000 applications were made online, with nearly 12,500 approvals. This is a significant decrease in applications compared to 2019, where over 32,000 applications were made online, with nearly 18,500 approvals.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Passport Service has had to prioritise the provision of emergency passport services, in full compliance with the Government guidelines. The Passport Service commenced the scaling up of operations on 4 May 2021 in line with the phased easing of restrictions set out in “COVID-19 Resilience and Recovery 2021 – The Plan Ahead”.
The Service has been focused since then on four priority areas.
- Clearing the COVID-19 backlog of 89,000 passport applications.
- Processing all adult renewal applications (including new applications) within 10 working days.
- Processing urgent and emergency applications.
- Providing customer services through our telephone and web chat team.
Very substantial progress has been made in clearing the COVID-19 backlog: all backlog applications which were completed properly have been processed and related passports issued.
The Passport Service will resume processing FBR applications as soon as possible. The Department is committed to allocating further resources to this service to assist with the high volume of applications when regular processing resumes with a focus on reducing turnaround times to pre COVID-19 levels by the end of 2021. In the meantime, in cases of exceptional urgency applicants may continue to contact the Passport Service directly.
