Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 31 May 2022
294. Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the current number of outstanding passport applications for children under thirteen years of age; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27409/22]
View answer295. Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the current number of passport applications that remain outstanding for children aged 13 years and under in the State as of 23 May 2022; the plans there are to clear any backlog; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27414/22]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 294 and 295 together.
As of 23 May 2022, there were 58,400 online passport applications in the Passport Service system for children aged thirteen and under.
Over half a million passports have been issued so far this year. Last year, 634,000 passports were issued in the whole year. In five months the Passport Service has issued over 80% of the total number of passports that were issued in the whole of last year.
The Passport Service is already out-performing any previous year, despite the challenges that it has encountered over the past two years. In 2019, which was the busiest year for passports pre-Covid, the Passport Service had issued 445,000 passports by the third week of May. In the same time period this year, over 520,000 passports have been issued.
99% of all child and adult online renewal applications are issued within the standard turnaround time and almost half of all adults who renew their passports online will receive their new passport in the post within 2 working days. This compares very favourably with passport services in countries such as the UK and United States where passports can take several weeks and sometimes even months to be processed.
The Passport Service is experiencing a very high volume of applications and is currently processing over 25,000 applications per week. While the numbers of applications in the system is high, there is a continuous stream of new applications coming in and a dispatch of completed passports being sent out every day.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and the Passport Service have been proactively planning for this significant increase in demand for many months and have made an unprecedented investment in the staffing and resources necessary to meet this demand.
Since March, processing times for first time applications have already been reduced by 25% and applications now take 30 working days rather than 40 days. From Monday, 6 June, it is hoped that, based on current trends, this processing time will decrease yet again to 25 working days for first time applications. That means that, in the space of three months, processing time for first-time applications will have been reduced by almost 40% as a direct result of the substantial level of investment that the Department has made in the Passport Service.
The Passport Service has been scaling up resources to deal with anticipated demand since June of last year. A major recruitment drive, in partnership with the Public Appointments Service, has been underway over the past several months. This has seen the number of Passport Service staff increase by 344 since June 2021.
In addition, the Passport Service has run its own recruitment competition for Temporary Clerical Officers (TCOs). The interviews have concluded and TCOs recruited from this competition are being assigned on a weekly basis. The first group began work on Monday, 23 May. This recruitment effort will bring staffing numbers at the Passport Service to over 900 which represents double the number of staff with the Passport Service in June of last year.
Intensive training of new staff and upskilling of existing staff has been underway for several months to increase the resources that can process complex applications, such as first time child applications.
The Passport Service continues to implement further measures to deal with increased demand on its services:
- The Passport Service has a comprehensive plan to ensure that adequate staff, accommodation and technology supports are in place to meet expected demand for passports in 2022.
- The Passport Service has released video tutorials with a view to assisting applicants to complete their application correctly. These videos will be shared on social media and will include instructions on submitting consent forms for child applications properly.
- The Passport Service is prioritising first time applications and directing increased resources to processing these complex applications with a view to reducing the current turnaround time. Passport Service staff are working targeted overtime in this regard.
- The Urgent Appointment Service is available for customers who wish to renew their passport at short notice. 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.
- A new document management system was put in place at the beginning of March. This aims to improve the processing speed in the Passport Service offices, and subsequent turnaround times for the applicant. One particular feature of the new system improves the processing time for applicants who have been asked to submit additional documents. Once the additional documents are received, they are being prioritised and complete applications can then be processed in 3 weeks. This significantly reduces the processing time, particularly for first time applicants.
- Public information media campaigns reminding citizens to check and renew their passports will continue during this busy year.
- There is an updated Department of Foreign Affairs website, which includes a new Passport Service section where applicants can easily find out what additional documents are required for their type of application.
I am confident that the measures that have been implemented will help to reduce passport turnaround times in the course of 2022 and will assist the Passport Service in meeting the high demand forecast for this year.
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.
