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

Nobody is begging for anything. This is the provision of an essential service through a pandemic.

I will be clear to Deputies. It is not about not being able to access extra office space. The way in which the Passport Office is set up is that it is a secure space to protect the integrity of the passport system. There was plenty of office space that we could take but you cannot simply extend into another office without extending the secure systems within the Passport Office, which is not straightforward.

We are expanding the physical space of the Passport Office in Balbriggan. We have taken on significantly more space adjacent to the existing Passport Office so that we can do that securely. We will be taking on extra staff to do that, planning for a significant increase in the demand for passports to be issued next year.

On opening up new offices for urgent appointment services, we will focus on the offices we have. The Cork office will open on the 22nd. I will come back to Members as to whether it would be deemed necessary or helpful to open other offices in other parts of the country.

We have looked at whether it would make sense to open a passport office in Northern Ireland. The review of that suggested, because the vast majority of applications are now made online, that should not be prioritised for now, but it is something I have an open mind on.

I would ask Members to recognise the extraordinary delivery system that has been in place for nearly half a million passports this year through a pandemic at a time when severe restrictions were in place in terms of allowing staff come into offices. We are now putting new systems in place to look at a severe increase.

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