John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Ms Siobhán Byrne is no stranger to the committee and I commend her and the team in the Passport Office. There were huge challenges last year and extraordinary work was done. Processing 1.08 million passports is a phenomenal achievement. This year I think we are going to be up there again. There were 148,000 applications in January, which is second only to February of last year. We know what way applications are going. It is good to hear there is a plan in place and that the staff are being hired. At the height of the season last year, we were still looking. Temporary staff were being redeployed and all that. I ask for an update on all of that. Hopefully everything is on track and we will have all the staff needed well in advance of the peak season, which we are probably heading into now if those figures are anything to go by.

Hopefully a lot of the bottlenecks and challenges that presented last year have been ironed out. I do not want to rehash them all here but there were issues around gardaí ringing witnesses and all of that and not getting through, causing untold difficulties for people. We might get an update on that. There were also other major challenges with regard to applicants getting to speak to a real person. The hub and the portal and all of that was good but people need to be able to talk to a real person. We have listened to many of the concerns and criticisms from last year, taken those on board and put more people in place to answer phones because that is a critical part of the process. People need real live information. Another major bone of contention last year was the fact that documents were only being checked a couple of days prior to the expected delivery date of a passport. That caused difficulties and problems for people. A lot of people said that a system should be devised so documents could be checked as early as possible once received in the Passport Office, rather than leaving them there for a couple of weeks before getting to them a couple of days before the expected delivery date. Hopefully some of those issues have been listened to and measures put in place to prevent them.

I echo what Deputy Clarke said about a passport office in the North. The Tánaiste's predecessor as Minister said he would look at carrying out some analysis of an additional passport office somewhere in the State. I contend that it would have to be somewhere on the island and I agree that an office in the North would be the right way to go. Will the Tánaiste commit to carrying out that analysis of costings and have a look at the need or potential for a new passport office? I hear all the arguments that we are pushing people online. That is fine but there are always emergency passports and people who want to walk in and make their applications. It is a huge issue for people in the North to have to travel down to Dublin. I ask that that be looked at.

The point was made there about public representatives in the North being in a position to make representations on their constituents' behalf with regard to passports. We have been told that as part of the new hub or portal there would be some mechanism to allow public representatives in the North, whether MLAs, MPs or the like, to make representations on their constituents' behalf. The then Minister gave that commitment last year. I ask for an update on that because that would be really useful. At the height of the crisis last year I was getting hundreds of representations from citizens in the North directed towards me because their MLAs or MPs could not make representations on their behalf. That is something that needs to be looked at. It has been looked at and we were told a mechanism or procedure would be put in place. I would just like an update on that.

The other major bugbear of mine was the foreign birth registrations. I am glad to see there has been considerable progress there. At our meeting on the Estimates last year, the target turnaround time was two years. I am glad to hear it is down to ten months. It is clear there has been some investment made there with redeployment or new staff put in. There is potential to get that down further. I ask for an update on that.

Regarding embassies and ambassadors, I have travelled a little bit over the last year and between this committee and the Joint Committee on European Union Affairs have had a lot of engagement with our diplomats and ambassadors abroad. I commend them, their skill and their dedication. The role they play in representing Ireland on the international stage is second to none. I just want to put that on the record. They are doing phenomenal work representing Ireland abroad. According to the supporting documentation, we are potentially going to open new embassies, which is welcome. I agree with what was said about Iran. There are major concerns that moving ahead there would send out all the wrong messages in terms of the gross human rights violations that are taking place there. There is potential to open other embassies outside of the countries that have been listed, such as the likes of Cuba given the long relationship we have had there. I have submitted some parliamentary questions on the potential of opening an embassy in Cuba and I would like the Tánaiste's view on that.

On programme C, regarding Vote 28 and funding, I just want to question the level of funding we have given to the International Criminal Court, ICC. Does the Tánaiste have a figure for that? I know there is a commitment by Ireland to hold Russia to account for its war crimes in its illegal invasion of Ukraine. It is critically important that the ICC can get on with doing its work and gather the evidence but it is also tasked with investigating alleged war crimes carried out by Israel in Palestine. I would like to see the same emphasis being put on that investigation. What sense of urgency has the Tánaiste expressed with regard to that investigation? Is there specific funding for that investigation or is it just one overall sum that goes to the ICC for its investigations?