Tuesday, 31 May 2022

Written Answers Nos. 324-343

Departmental Staff

Questions (324)

Mary Lou McDonald

Question:

324. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the number of staff employed in his Department by gender and by civil service salary scale in tabular form. [27597/22]

Written answers

Minister for Foreign Affairs

The number of staff employed in the Department of Foreign Affairs as of 30th April 2022 is detailed below.  Civil Service pay scales apply to all staff employed in my Department as set out in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform's most recent pay circular published on www.gov.ie.

In addition, I have also provided the number of staff employed in Ireland's network of missions overseas.  

Grade	Female	Male	Undisclosed	Total
Assistant Secretary & Higher	8	21	0	29
Principal Officer & Equivalent	61	77	0	138
Assistant Principal Officer & Equivalent	166	178	0	344
Higher Executive Officer & Equivalent	65	55	0	120
Administrative Officer & Equivalent	108	99	0	207
Executive Officer	142	87	0	229
Clerical Officer	384	186	0	570
Temporary Clerical Officer	136	116	0	252
Service Officer, Cleaner, Driver	12	35	0	47
Other	9	4	0	13
Staff recruited locally in Ireland's missions overseas	518	344	14	876
Total	1609	1202	14	2825

Question No. 325 answered with Question No. 307.

Question No. 326 answered with Question No. 313.

Question No. 327 answered with Question No. 274.

Question No. 328 answered with Question No. 273.

Passport Services

Questions (329)

Johnny Guirke

Question:

329. Deputy Johnny Guirke asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the number of passport applications that were received by county in 2019, 2020, 2021, and to date in 2022, in tabular form. [27719/22]

Written answers

Minister for Foreign Affairs

The number of online passport applications received by county in 2019, 2020, 2021, and to date in 2022 are outlined below in tabular form. These figures apply to online applications only. Due to the way in which the address fields on the paper application form are formatted, it is not possible to provide the requested figures in relation to paper-based applications. 

County	2019	2020	2021	2022 (to date)
Antrim	6,638	10,985	16,587	18,753
Armagh	1,673	2,672	4,232	5,381
Carlow	3,584	2,203	4,189	5,564
Cavan	3,901	2,325	4,896	6,424
Clare	7,432	4,466	9,202	10,553
Cork	31,571	20,338	42,751	53,183
Derry	4,079	4,922	7,147	9,485
Donegal	9,516	5,623	10,605	13,846
Down	4,701	7,949	12,244	14,209
Dublin	93,590	64,367	126,323	122,383
Fermanagh	684	1,100	1,736	2,077
Galway	15,611	9,782	20,542	23,656
Kerry	7,448	4,842	10,270	12,223
Kildare	15,880	10,233	20,153	23,627
Kilkenny	5,504	3,252	6,590	8,688
Laois	4,303	2,732	5,539	7,127
Leitrim	1,748	1,021	2,141	2,759
Limerick	11,983	7,258	15,117	17,532
Longford	1,881	1,194	2,450	3,201
Louth	8,930	5,470	10,742	13,076
Mayo	7,692	4,453	9,689	11,843
Meath	14,002	8,557	17,464	21,293
Monaghan	3,338	1,999	3,890	5,190
Offaly	3,904	2,371	4,955	6,544
Roscommon	3,552	2,041	4,391	5,289
Sligo	3,936	2,181	4,787	6,069
Tipperary	8,873	5,114	10,862	13,699
Tyrone	2,421	3,474	5,113	6,947
Waterford	7,122	4,283	9,021	11,240
Westmeath	5,345	3,197	6,462	8,111
Wexford	8,941	5,327	10,587	13,294
Wicklow	10,132	6,494	13,026	14,910

Passport Services

Questions (330, 334)

Johnny Guirke

Question:

330. Deputy Johnny Guirke asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the number of staff employed by the Passport Office in 2019, 2020, 2021, and to date in 2022, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27720/22]

Pauline Tully

Question:

334. Deputy Pauline Tully asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the number of staff working in the Passport Office in the past three years in tabular form; if Covid-19 restrictions have led to a backlog of passport applications; if so, the extent of the backlog; if additional staff were recruited to deal with the backlog since Covid-19 restrictions have been lifted; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27760/22]

Written answers

Minister for Foreign Affairs

I propose to take Questions Nos. 330 and 334 together.

Over half a million passports have been issued so far this year. Last year, 634,000 passports were issued in the whole year. In less than 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 internationally.

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.

I am confident that the additional staff assigned to the Passport Service will help to reduce passport turnaround times in the course of 2022 and will assist in meeting the high demand forecast for this year.

The staffing numbers within the Passport Service fluctuate throughout the year depending on the level of demand. The table below outlines the number of staff in the Passport Service during the first quarter of each year since 2019. 

Staffing numbers at the Passport Service in Quarter 1, 2019-2022

Year	Staff
Q1 2019	475
Q1 2020	499
Q1 2021	468
Q1 2022	726

Question No. 331 answered with Question No. 291.

Question No. 332 answered with Question No. 291.

Question No. 333 answered with Question No. 313.

Question No. 334 answered with Question No. 330.

Question No. 335 answered with Question No. 273.

Question No. 336 answered with Question No. 303.

Question No. 337 answered with Question No. 273.

Question No. 338 answered with Question No. 274.

Departmental Staff

Questions (339)

Charles Flanagan

Question:

339. Deputy Charles Flanagan asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the number of staff members that have been posted at the Permanent Representation of Ireland to the European Union, including all counsellors and attachés, in addition to all staff members from the Department of Foreign Affairs for each of the years 2016 to 2021 and to date in 2022; if he will list the functions of each staff member and highlight any new posts created or discontinued; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27868/22]

Written answers

Minister for Foreign Affairs

The number of staff from the Department of Foreign Affairs serving at the Permanent Representation of Ireland to the European Union from 2016 to date is provided below in tabular form. 

In addition, the Department of Foreign Affairs also facilitates the secondment of officers from other Government Departments to the Permanent Representation of Ireland to the European Union to serve in a variety of roles.

Further detail on the individual roles and functions of DFA staff and seconded staff serving in the Permanent Representation are available on my Department’s website www.dfa.ie/prep/brussels/staff

Three additional staff were assigned from my Department to serve in the Permanent Representation of Ireland to the EU following the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union; one each at Counsellor, First Secretary and Third Secretary levels. There are plans underway by my Department to assign two additional staff to the Permanent Representation in 2022 and staffing levels at all of Ireland’s missions overseas is kept under continuous review. 

DFA staff serving in the Permanent Representation of Ireland to the European Union	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022
Assistant Secretary	2	2	2	2	2	2	2
Principal Officer & Equivalent	8	9	9	9	10	10	10
Assistant Principal Officer & Equivalent	33	33	34	35	34	32	30
Higher Executive Officer & Equivalent	1	1	2	2	2	2	2
Administrative Officer & Equivalent	5	7	6	6	7	8	8
Executive Officer	3	3	3	3	3	4	4
Clerical Officer	16	16	16	16	15	15	15
Total:	68	71	72	73	73	73	71

 

Question No. 340 answered with Question No. 273.

Question No. 341 answered with Question No. 274.

Question No. 342 answered with Question No. 274.

Question No. 343 answered with Question No. 274.