Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Acting Chairman will know that one of the most bizarre aspects of Irish politics is the engagement that elected representatives often have with the passport service and it is not something that I am terribly comfortable with. I should make it clear that people should not have to contact their Deputies to get their passport on time. In my experience, those who do get in touch with me on passport inquiries generally do so out of desperation. Their stories in recent days and weeks have been disappointing, to put it mildly. They have recounted their engagement with a system that can only be described as dysfunctional over the past number of months.

In April, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Coveney, told the House that the then backlog of 89,000 applications would be cleared by the end of June. A fortnight after that deadline had passed the backlog had grown to 95,000. As of late September, the backlog had increased to 130,000. I hope that the Minister of State will be able to provide us with up-to-date figures this evening.

I am sure that the staff in the Passport Office have been working exceptionally hard through all of this but there is a serious systems failure that has led to this point. It seems incredible that the Department claims that more than one in five applications is incomplete or requires further information. I wan to put on the record the experience of one of my constituents. This gentleman and his wife were due to travel to Međugorje yesterday and were going on their own personal pilgrimage. They submitted their passport applications on 15 September.

In his wife's case, it was a simple renewal. She received an estimated issue date of 14 October. As his passport had expired 11 years ago, which shows how unique this trip was, his was treated as a new application and he was told his passport would not issue until 23 November.

He contacted me to plead that something be done. On 1 October, I sent an urgent passport query, attaching his flight details, and did not receive any response. Following numerous attempts to call the Passport Office phone line, I re-sent the urgent passport query on 13 October - again, no response. On 15 October, I contacted the Minister's office and a very helpful official undertook to contact the Passport Office on behalf of this man. Only then did I receive an acknowledgement by email, which just told the applicant to monitor his phone and emails. Both my constituency secretarial assistant and I again tried numerous times to contact the Passport Office in regard to this case.

On 19 October, the day before the couple's trip was due to begin, we once again contacted the Minister's office. On this occasion, we were referred back to the public phone line, which we had not been able to get through to up to that point. My secretarial assistant eventually got through to the public line, at 4.25 p.m. on the day before the scheduled flight, but the person who answered would not provide any information and, in fact, terminated the call. The man did not get his passport in time, while his wife, who had been provided with an estimated issue date of 14 October, did not receive hers either. They still have not received their passports. It is difficult to describe the upset this ordeal has caused the couple without detailing their very personal reasons for wanting to travel to Medjugorje. I can only say their upset and hurt is very real and will be long standing.

What is the Minister of State's proposal to ensure no other family will have to go through such an ordeal in the coming days and weeks?

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