Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 1 March 2022
402. Deputy Thomas Gould asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if he has considered contacting the HSE to advertise vacancies in passport offices to those with contracts ending at vaccination, testing and tracing centres given the large backlog in passport applications and the winding down of certain Covid-19 response measures. [10986/22]
View answerMy Department has been pro-actively planning to ensure the necessary resources are in place to meet the current and expected level of demand for passports in 2022 and is making an unprecedented investment in the Passport Service in terms of additional staff and improvements to the passport processing and customer service systems.
My Department is working intensively, in partnership with the Public Appointments Service, to recruit temporary and permanent staff for the Passport Service. This recruitment drive has been underway for several months. Since June of 2021, over 300 members of staff at all grades have been assigned to the Passport Service. Additional staff are being assigned on a weekly basis with a goal of reaching staff numbers of 900 by the end of March. This represents a doubling of staff numbers over the course of 9 months.
Any individual interested in applying is welcome to do so via the current open competition to recruit Temporary Clerical Officers or other open recruitment competitions administered by the Public Appointments Service. Further information is available on the Public Appointments Service website: www.publicjobs.ie.
