Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The first issue has been raised with me by many colleagues, including Deputy Stanton. Particularly for first-time applications, when an applicant was told a mistake had been made and they sent in corrected forms or new photographs or whatever, the clock started again and the application took another eight weeks. That is no longer the case. Now, when a correction is made or extra documentation is submitted, there is a commitment to try to turn around that application within three weeks. That has not been a straightforward process but, as with many things, the Passport Office has responded to the concerns coming from public representatives and the applicants themselves. It is not a case of realising after a number of weeks that there is a mistake and then starting all over again. In fact, it is quite the opposite now. The turnaround time is often less than three weeks after the corrections are made but that is the target we are setting for ourselves.

I have been asked about opening an office in Northern Ireland. I have also been asked about opening an office in the west of Ireland. We are trying to get people to apply online in big numbers and that is working. If people apply online and fill out the correct forms, it should not matter where on the island they are applying from. Of the 140,000 applications made in February, 106,557 were domestic, which essentially means they were from the Republic of Ireland. There were 7,339 international applications, which is outside the UK and Ireland, 757 from our missions, 11,983 from Northern Ireland and 13,487 from the UK. There are a lot of people applying from Great Britain and quite a number applying from Northern Ireland but the main bulk is still domestic applications from the Republic of Ireland. I said when asked about this in the Seanad that we would look at whether we could put some sort of information portal in place for public representatives in Northern Ireland. I can understand that that is a pressure and we will see what we can do there. However, I do not want to commit on the hoof because there are resource implications there. We are not opening an office but when we have a new IT system we might have options to look at our office structure. For now, we are trying to get the system as efficient as possible and get more staff in place. That is where the focus needs to be in the short term.