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

I am aware of the problems that have arisen this year because they have translated into political requests. Virtually every Member of this House has been asked to solve individual problems for families and constituents. That is an ineffective way of dealing with tens of thousands of passports each week. We have to put systems in place that deal more comprehensively with people's concerns. It should also be possible to deal with emergency situations quickly without stalling the processing of the passport applications of everybody else. A considerable improvement will be seen when it becomes possible to apply for child passports online. When a number of family members are renewing passports currently, the adult passports are delayed because of the security checks required for child passports. We are assessing at the moment. We are learning lessons from what has happened this year. The problems stem back to closure of the Passport Office for a couple of days during the difficult weather period. While the backlog started then, the difficulty experienced at that time is certainly not the sole reason for the backlog. When the peak period has passed, the Passport Office will deal with queries under all categories in a much more efficient way. We need to learn lessons for next year to ensure we do not ask staff to do an impossible job, which is what happened for a time this year.

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