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

Looking at passport services in other countries, in other parts of the world, the idea that one applies for a passport renewal and gets it back within 48 hours, which is the case in about 75% of all applications here, is something many other countries could only dream of delivering. Yes, we have issues every now and again, and sometimes there are complex cases that need to be resolved and sometimes mistakes are made. On the whole, however, through the Covid period and through the huge increase in pressures on passport applications after Covid, while there were some difficult months, the Passport Office has responded remarkably. We have effectively doubled the workforce there, and in a pretty seamless way.

To answer the Deputy's specific questions, first, on a passport office in Northern Ireland, approximately 10% of total applications received by the Passport Office are submitted by applicants residing in Northern Ireland. Some 87% of applicants from Northern Ireland this year have applied through Passport Online. That figure will continue to grow as the passport service's digital first media and communications strategy is rolled out in the coming months. Currently, the passport service is issuing passports to 84% of adults online, including renewal applications, and 50% of child online applications within three working days or less. Some 60% of online applications submitted by applicants resident in Northern Ireland are renewal applications.

The passport service continuously considers ways in which it can improve its service to all our citizens, regardless of where they live, and regularly reviews a range of passport services on offer while also strategically planning to respond to future needs. The passport offices in Mount Street and Cork have public counters and offer an urgent appointment service for those who wish to renew their passports within one day in Dublin or, in the case of Cork, four days. Passport service figures show that only 1% of the total of all passports produced by the Passport Office were issued through those public counters. An office in Northern Ireland to process and produce passports in emergency and expedited situations would require significant expenditure across staffing, equipment, operational aspects and so on. Estimates, based on current prices, indicate that the costs associated with equipment, staffing and operational elements could be in excess of about €10 million.

We are trying to allocate our resources where the pressure lies. The vast majority of people now apply online, which means they do not need to go into an office at all. That should be the case for citizens in Northern Ireland just as it is south of the Border. We are looking at trying to improve our services in the context of public representatives in Northern Ireland raising questions as to where passports are in the system, whether a problematic passport is problematic or whatever else. We are looking at an online portal to do that. We have not launched that yet but we are working on and finalising it.

The other thing I can say with some confidence is that we are changing our software system.

Our passport integrity and issuing system works on the basis of a software package, which we are upgrading and changing over the coming years. When we do that we will have a lot more flexibility in potentially outsourcing some of the counter-based information and so on to other agencies, whether it is social welfare offices, An Post or whatever. We will be able to remotely manage some of the application processes. The application will still have to be considered and printed centrally but it will be easier to facilitate and support complex applications when we have more flexibility. One of the challenges we had during Covid, for example, was that we could not allow passport staff to work from home because our software system did not allow it. That was because of the security systems that are interlinked within the offices we have. It will be a much more flexible system under the new software programme, which will take a few years. That will allow us to make choices to maybe have a partial counter service in other parts of the island or the country.

The point on foreign birth registration, FBR, was a fair one. Demand for FBRs has increased significantly as a result of the Brexit vote in the UK. In 2015, prior to Brexit a total of 6,000 entries were made in the foreign birth register. In 2019 a peak number of 19,000 entries were made to the register. Demand for this service from applicants in England, Scotland and Wales continues to be strong with over 8,000 applications received to date this year. The service was also impacted by necessary Covid-19 restrictions in 2020 and 2021 and the unprecedented demand for passports seen to date this year. The passport service has processed over 18,000 FBR applications to date this year. In case anybody thinks nothing is happening on FBRs, they are being processed but we have to prioritise the ones that need to be put through the system as opposed to ones that are not time-sensitive. The number of applications processed per month in both September and October with over 1,000 processed in August, 2,000 processed in September and almost 5,000 processed in October, so significant progress is being made. The waiting time for FBR applications is two years from receipt of supporting documentation. The passport service is on track to significantly reduce the processing time for FBR applications by the end of this year. My Department has put in place a number of measures to address the volume of FBR applications on hand. Additional staff have been assigned to the processing of FBR applications in recent weeks and will continue to be assigned in the coming weeks. A targeted overtime has commenced for the processing of FBR applications and the unprecedented level of staff working in the passport service will be maintained in the months ahead, allowing for the continued reassignment of additional staff to the processing of FBR applications.

I ask Ms Byrne to put her hand up on the following matter if I am wrong because I do not want to mislead anybody. Normally what happens is that we effectively increase the staff numbers significantly for the busy times of the year. People come and work seasonally within the Passport Office and that suits many of the people who work on those conditions. They work for a number of months during the year when the passport applications are at their busiest and then in the quieter times we have a much smaller workforce. We are looking to try to hold on to as many people as possible throughout the year so we can try to deal with some of the backlogs that materialised during Covid and the post-Covid period, particularly on FBRs. I hope that gives the Deputy a sense of where we are at there.