Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 3 February 2022
265. Deputy Pa Daly asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if his attention has been drawn to the fact that the Passport Office is presently unable to issue online applicants with the necessary links to forms they must complete to progress renewals and first-time applications; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5541/22]
View answerThe Passport Online service offers Irish citizens the ability to apply online for their passport 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is a user-friendly, efficient service that consistently offers processing times up to 4 times faster than paper-based passport renewal applications. Over 90% of all passport applications are received through Passport Online.
All Irish citizens, including children, can use the online system to renew their passports from anywhere in the world. Passport Online can also be accessed by first time applicants, irrespective of age in Ireland, Northern Ireland, Great Britain, Europe, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA.
The Passport Service regrets that Passport Online was experiencing some technical issues over the course of last week. During this time a small number of customers experienced difficulties with the links required to complete their online passport application. Despite this over 32,000 applications were submitted via Passport Online last week.
A scheduled system upgrade that has improved the responsiveness and efficiency of the system was completed on Friday, 28 January 2022. This upgrade has addressed the issues experienced by some customers. Since the upgrade was completed, Passport Online has been fully functional and operating smoothly.
Any customers who still require a link to complete the forms necessary to submit their application can use the following online portal to request their resubmission link - passportresubmissions.dfa.ie/resubmission/
