Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It has. There is no question. I take on board what the Cathaoirleach said. We want to be as efficient as we possibly can because that is part of our mission statement. These are services to the citizens and we have got to be as efficient and optimal as we can be, within reason. In that respect, when it comes to the passports, we now have about 815 staff in the Passport Office, which is the most ever. We are continuing to recruit, with 50 staff appointed so far this year and 100 staff going through the Garda vetting process. Some will be temporary and some permanent but that is very high. To Deputy Brady's point, all documents are currently being checked with one week for renewals and two weeks for first-time applicants. The phone line was opened in October 2021 for Oireachtas Members, to help them query applications on behalf of citizens. It does not serve the function of expediting applications but at that time there were huge problems with people getting access to personnel, staffing and all that. However, that is no longer the case and 100% of calls are now answered. Huge progress has therefore been made. We are looking at a phone portal for MLAs. Strangely, our MEPs were not involved in the phone access but they are now. There are only 15 in any event but nonetheless they are Members of the European Parliament. We are testing out the MLA situation in terms of the technology and that.

On the broader question of having a Passport Office in the North, very clearly it is a digital-first strategy. I stress that. It is the quickest, most efficient, most convenient and least expensive channel for applicants. It has allowed for the centralisation of passport processing and greater efficiency for customers of the service. To Deputy Clarke's point, we did expand capacity at Balbriggan where there are now 500 staff but it was the digital-first strategy that enabled us to do that and centralise functions there.

A total of 90% of applicants last year applied for a passport online. That figure will continue to grow as the passport service's digital-first media and communication strategy is rolled out in the coming months. Demand for passports from Northern Ireland remains steady. It represents approximately 11% of total applications received by the passport service, and 87% of applicants from Northern Ireland applied through passport online.

The Passport Office on Mount Street in Cork has a public counter. It offers an urgent appointment service for those who wish to renew their passport urgently, but the majority of all online renewal applications are now being processed in three working days or less, meaning that, for many, the passport online service is even faster than the four-day urgent appointment service at our public counters. Due to the necessity of the security checks carried out on all first-time applications, regardless of their origin, these applications cannot be processed through the urgent appointments system at our public offices. Applications processed by public counters in Dublin and Cork amount to approximately 1% of the total of all passports produced by the passport service in 2022.

The overwhelming majority of applications now apply online. The considerable benefits of passport online for all our citizens are there to be seen, and because of all of that, a business case cannot be made for opening an additional Passport Office, be it in Galway or, as Deputies have asked for, in Northern Ireland. We will continue to work on ways of improving the service for citizens, but we have to take those realities on board and the future direction of travel, excuse the pun, with regard to the digital-first approach.

With regard to the opening of new embassies-----