John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge the work of the staff within the Passport Office, who have done extraordinary work under very difficult circumstances. What has happened here has been a real failure to plan for the expected demand for passports, not just in terms of Brexit and the expected increase in applications in that regard but in a post-Covid situation and with the opening up of international travel. There was a failure to put in place the staff that are needed. The core staff within the passport service is about 450 and, during peak times, that increases by about 200. However, this year, it only increased by about 50, bringing it up to 500, so there was a shortage of staff within the passport section to deal with the expected increase in passport applications and with the backlog, and then people wonder why there are huge delays and problems. There were serious problems and a failure to deal with them.

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