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

I refer the Deputy to the additional information contained in my reply.

I am more than aware of the problems that we have faced with passports in recent weeks. Passport offices were closed for processing and the machines were turned off for two days because of extreme weather conditions. We could not bring staff in - it was not safe. When the service is processing in or around 70,000 passport applications at any given time, such a closure will have a major impact. However, we are getting back on top of it. We are again ahead of the target processing times even though there was a great deal of significant disruption in recent weeks. Many Deputies contacted my office about this matter on behalf of their constituents. I hope that we were able to resolve the emergency cases and that we will be able to return to an efficiently run system after the significant interruption, which was outside our control. We have made up for that by using extra staff and overtime to get the processing times back under the targets.

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