Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 16 November 2021
303. Deputy Richard Bruton asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the additional procedures which must be completed for issuing a passport to a child of Irish citizens who are not Irish born; and if there are steps which can be taken to speed up this process. [55582/21]
View answerAll passport applications are subject to the provisions of the Passports Act, 2008 (“The 2008 Act”). The Act provides, among other things, that a person must be an Irish citizen before a passport can be issued to him/her. In order to meet this legal requirement, each person must demonstrate an entitlement to Irish citizenship in his/her passport application.
As part of the identity and citizenship verification process, the Passport Service requires applicants themselves, or the applicant’s guardian in the case of applications for children, to submit all necessary supporting documents in order to establish the applicant’s identity and entitlement to citizenship.
For example, in the case of a child born on the island of Ireland to an Irish citizen, who themselves were not born on the island of Ireland, proof of the parent’s Irish citizenship at the time of the applicant’s birth is required. In such cases, parents must submit a certified copy of their Irish passport along with their child’s first time passport application.
In a similar manner, In the case of Irish-born children claiming Irish citizenship through a parent who is a naturalised Irish citizen or received Irish citizenship through Foreign Birth Registration or Post Nuptial Citizenship Declaration, evidence must be given that the parent was in fact an Irish citizen before the child was born.
The current processing time for first time passport applications is 40 working days for Passport Online and 8 weeks for applications submitted through An Post's "Passport Express" service.
The Passport Service is currently experiencing a high demand for first time passports. There are currently 62,000 first time online applications on hand with the Passport Service. Over a third (23,000) of online first time applications are incomplete and require the applicant or their guardian to submit the documents necessary to complete the passport application. These cannot be processed by the Passport Service until all relevant documents have been submitted and the application is fully complete. The Passport Service engages with all applicants who have not submitted the required documentation to ensure that their application is completed correctly and can proceed through the processing system.
To protect the integrity of the Irish Passport, first time applications require careful processing in order to validate the identity of the applicant and their entitlement to Irish citizenship for the first time. Additionally, in the case of children, the consent of guardians must be validated. Accordingly, the current processing time for first-time online applications is longer than for that of a passport renewal application.
In the case of children born abroad to an Irish citizen, who themselves were not born in on the island of Ireland, but received Irish citizenship through descent, naturalisation, Foreign Birth Registration or Post Nuptial Citizenship Declaration before the child was born, the child may apply for Irish citizenship through Foreign Birth Registration. Once the child is entered onto the Foreign Births Register, they are an Irish citizen and are entitled to apply for an Irish passport. Information on how to apply for Irish citizenship through Foreign Birth Registration is available on my Department’s website (www.dfa.ie/citizenship/born-abroad/registering-a-foreign-birth).
Operations at the Passport Service were severely disrupted by public health restrictions brought about by the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. During this period, unfortunately, it was necessary to pause Foreign Birth Registration processing in order to focus also on the provision of urgent passport services. As of Monday, 15th November, the processing of Foreign Birth Registration has resumed on a phased basis. My Department is fully committed to allocating resources over the coming weeks to assist with the high volume of applications, with a focus on reducing turnaround times.
The Passport Service continually examines how to improve processing times, including examining the processes around the verification and processing of the supporting documentation for first time passport and Foreign Birth Registration applications. The Passport Service is also working closely with the Department’s Human Resources Division and with the Public Appointments Service on an ongoing basis to recruit additional staff to meet the current and forecasted demand for passports and Foreign Birth Registration. We are planning for the recruitment and assignment of an additional 384 permanent and temporary staff between now and the end of January 2022, bringing total staff numbers to 920 and effectively doubling the number of staff at the Passport Service since June of this year.
