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

-----but it could have been a very different and tragic scene. However, it was not. That is a reflection on the professionalism of our emergency services and first responders. Today, the Garda Síochána has the scene cordoned off. There will be an extensive investigation to understand what happened. As Deputy Darragh O'Brien has done, I thank those involved for their professionalism. We will come back to this issue when we have more clarity on what happened and on why and how it unfolded.

On the passports issue, the service has been under pressure, in particular over the last two weeks. A number of Members know that because they have come to me about individual cases. We have tried to put extra resources into my office over the last number of weeks to try to deal with that. We anticipate increased numbers this year on last year in respect of passport applications and renewals. Last year there was a big increase on the year before. There is a big demand for Irish passports now. The real problem in recent weeks was actually the extreme weather.

We had to close services down because staff could not get into the passport office for a number of days. As a result, our passport teams worked over the bank holiday when other people were not working in an effort to try to catch up and get back to the turnaround times we created last year which were a significant improvement on the past. Whether it is online or post applications, we are endeavouring, with some success, to get back to where we were in January and the back end of last year in respect of getting turnaround times down to roughly three weeks for the postal service and two weeks for an online application.

However, that is taking some time. This week online applications are back to the acceptable benchmark. We are working overtime to make sure we get back to that from a postal service perspective as well. However, people have to understand that many services in the country have been impacted by severe weather and this is one of them.

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