Mr. Niall Burgess:

Yes. The Garda vetting took longer so we did not have our full complement of temporary staff in January when we needed them. The management of the balance between temporary staff requirements and full-time staff, and the time that the temporary staff get on board, is a critical factor for us in the Passport Office. The Deputy has asked what we are looking at for next year and this is one of the issues we will look at particularly closely.

We are involved in a major modernisation process in the passport service and this will address all of these problems over time. We are about half way through that process at the moment. The introduction of online passports for child renewals, which is on target, will make a significant difference to the processing times and the delays next year.