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

That is a question that I have asked in the Department. The assessment has been that the focus needed to be on more staff. Last year, many people who were waiting for the return of renewed passports were simply unable to get someone at the end of a phone to give them accurate information because there were too many calls and not enough people to answer them. Because we do have the capacity to print the volumes we need with the three printing machines we have, the focus this year has been on the staff who are focused on processing, process delivery and answering phones and queries, to keep people up to date. The result has been quite impressive. We now turn around both online and postal applications on time, and sometimes ahead of the recommended time.

We respond as best we can with emergency passports. Sometimes political intervention is needed and justified. We try to accommodate emergency cases when we can.

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