Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 9 May 2024
50. Deputy Matt Carthy asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs his proposals to ensure the Passport Office operates efficiently throughout the busy summer period; if he will ensure that applicants can avail of urgent passport renewal or first-time in-person application and collection services when required; and if he will outline the number of additional staff who will be appointed to the Passport Office in the coming weeks. [21106/24]
Amharc ar fhreagraI commend the staff in the Passport Office, who have been going through probably the busiest two or three years the office has ever faced. I think everybody in this House has at some stage added to their burden in terms of dealing with urgent cases in particular. Will the Tánaiste ensure there are sufficient staff within the Passport Office to deal with demand during the busy summer period? Will he consider a mechanism that will allow urgent passport applications to receive an urgent appointment in order to secure passports, perhaps at the last minute, in unavoidable circumstances? There is a provision for emergency cases but not for urgent cases.
I pay tribute to the team and all of the staff working at the passport service. It has issued 450,000 passports to date this year and is on track to have issued half a million passports by the end of this month. Virtually all complete passport applications are being processed within advertised turnaround times.
The passport service is well-staffed and in an excellent position to deliver on the demand forecast for the rest of this year. Ensuring that we have enough staff to respond to demand is a priority for me and my Department and is kept under constant review. The passport service currently has 830 staff, including 40 officers who were assigned in April. A further 16 staff are due to be assigned in the coming weeks.
In situations where applicants have booked travel and need their passport renewed urgently, the public offices in Dublin 2 and in Cork operate a four-day urgent appointment service for renewal applications. The Dublin office also offers a one-day urgent appointment service. In March, the passport service made an additional 55 one-day appointments per week available in the Dublin office. Therefore, there are now 220 one-day appointments and 264 four-day renewal appointments available in Dublin and 280 four-day renewal appointments available in Cork every week for citizens who need to renew their passports urgently.
First-time applications are too complex to process at a public counter as they are, in essence, verifications of Irish citizenship. As such, a rigorous process is in place to validate the identity of applicants and to confirm their citizenship status.
With regard to passport collection, this can be facilitated in emergency situations. However, given the efficiencies of the passport online service, once the passport is printed and dispatched, it will generally be with the applicant through the post on the next working day. I encourage everyone to apply online through passport online, which offers citizens the ability to apply for their passport 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The Tánaiste should have a look at the Oireachtas query service for passports as well. It is not great at the moment
I have said a number of times that when the passport service works well, it works very well. That is the experience for many people. I know a lot of people who have applied, particularly for passport renewals, who have actually been surprised at the speed at which their passport has arrived in their letterboxes. That is an absolute credit and testament to the staff and the operation that is in place.
The issue is that when problems arise they can be devastating. They can result in families missing holidays that have been long-planned or people missing weddings or other important life moments. We still always need to endeavour to ensure we have a system that is as close to perfect as possible.
In December 2021 the House was told that staffing levels in the passport service would actually rise to 920 by January 2022. The Tánaiste has indicated the current staffing level is 830, with an additional 18 being brought on board. Has the target of 920 been abandoned? There was no reference to it. What is the staffing level target within the Passport Office?
The first point I would make is there is a balance as well. We have to consistently tell people to remember to get their passports updated, to apply online and in time. We do everything we possibly can to facilitate urgent cases. Most people in the House would acknowledge that, and we will continue to do it.
However, we do not want to create a new scenario whereby people think they can get a passport within four days or one day and they do not have to bother applying online. There is a balance to be struck there. That said, we will still do everything we can to sort out urgent situations. In emergency situations, passports are sorted out, as the Deputy knows.
With regard to staffing, we have temporary staff in addition to full-time staff and we keep it under constant review. We have significantly increased staffing levels in the past two years in particular. We are confident we can meet the demand again this year, as we did last year. There was a post-Covid spike that we believe will even out and settle down in the next year or two.
The urgent passport service is the gap within the services. It is primarily for first-time applicants. I am not talking about people who apply on 1 May and wish to travel on 20 May. In most instances we deal with, these are people who submitted their applications late last year or in the very early weeks of this year.
They subsequently received notification from the Passport Office that something was not right, such as a photo not being perfect, the person who provided a signature on a consent form not being contactable or whatever the case may be. By the time that communication was received, a case that may not have been urgent when the passport was first applied for has become urgent. There needs to be a mechanism whereby, in cases where the Passport Office has dealt with all of the citizenship issues and other questions, an appointment can be made for somebody to bring in a final piece of information and a passport to be offered on the spot.
I found that most people in that position would quite willingly pay five or ten times the cost of the original application because of the urgency involved. That would negate the fear of the Minister that everybody would leave it until the last moment. In most instances, only people in desperate need of a passport would avail of such a service. I ask the Minister to keep that under review and give it consideration, in particular during the summer months.
We are doing so. The manner in which we have approached this issue is to increase the number of appointments at public counters for the one-day or four-day renewal service at the Mount Street office in Dublin and the four-day renewal service in Cork. As I said, every week there are about 221 one-day and 264 four-day renewal appointments available in Dublin and 280 four-day renewal appointments in Cork. We will examine whether we can improve and expand that service in order to get the balance right and deal with the urgent cases that arise.
