Patrick Costello
Question:110. Deputy Patrick Costello asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs when the passport office will fully reopen in line with operations pre-March 2020; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11812/22]
View answerWednesday, 2 March 2022
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Since late January, all Passport Service sites in Dublin and Cork have been operating at full capacity following the ending of many Covid-19 public health restrictions, and all services have fully resumed as they were in place before the pandemic.
The Passport Offices in Mount St, Dublin 2 and in Cork offer an Urgent Appointment Service for the renewal of passports. This service was launched in Dublin on 27 September 2021 and in Cork on 26 October 2021. The Passport Office in London launched its Urgent Appointment Service on 1 March.
The Urgent Appointment Service replaced the Rapid Renewal Service and customers availing of this service can renew their passport within 1 or 4 days in Dublin, within 4 days in Cork and within 5 days in London. In February, the Passport Service increased the number of appointments at its public offices by 100%, providing an extra 170 appointments per week.
The 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.
There are currently over 160,000 applications in the Passport Service system. While there is a very high volume of applications in the system, this does not represent a backlog. These applications are all being processed in the usual way, with a continuous stream of new applications and a continuous dispatch of completed passports happening every day.
Figures show that of the total number of applications in the system, 57% are fully complete and are being processed by the Passport Service. The other 43% of applications in the system are incomplete, which means the Passport Service is waiting for the applicant to submit the necessary documentation required. While the Passport Service makes every effort to contact applicants in such circumstances, their experience is that many applicants take weeks and sometimes months to send in the necessary documents.
Currently, 45% of adult online renewal applications are processed in one working day, while 99% of online child renewal passports are issued within the advertised processing time of 15 working days.
My Department has been pro-actively planning to ensure the necessary resources are in place to meet the current and expected level of demand 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.
I strongly urge anyone who is considering travelling overseas this year, particularly families with young children, to check the validity of their passports before booking travel and to apply for their passports online in plenty of time.