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

I thank the Deputy. I suspect there will be a lot of talk around passports in the weeks ahead as more and more people choose to travel again, and many, of course, have not even thought about travel for the last number of years. We expect a significant increase in passport applications. There are questions coming up that will allow me to address what we are doing in response, which is a dramatic increase in staff numbers in the Passport Office.

Passport Service operations were severely disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic throughout 2020 and 2021, as were many Government services. Despite necessary public health restrictions, the Passport Service maintained operations, with staff working onsite throughout the pandemic.

The Passport Service has put in place several measures to meet the demand anticipated this year including the following. First, there is the assignment of additional permanent and temporary officers on a continuous basis to the Passport Office. My Department has conducted a major recruitment drive in recent months and I expect that, by the end of January, staffing numbers will be at approximately 777, which is a 70% increase on June of last year. Additional staff will continue to be assigned to the Passport Office throughout February and March. The new Passport Office in Swords is now operational and can accommodate 140 staff. Second, the Passport Service is engaged in intensive training of staff to ensure they have adequate resources to process complex applications. Third, the Passport Service is continually looking at ways to improve processing times. A particular improvement that is currently being rolled out and will be of interest to the Deputy is a change to the document management process that reduces the turnaround time when additional documents need to be submitted by the applicant.

With regard to the simplification of the process, the Passport Service continually works to streamline the application process. Comprehensive information is available on all aspects of the application process on my Department’s website and the Passport Service continually reviews these instructions in order to make them more accessible. In addition, there are over 60 staff on the customer service team dedicated to answering applicants' questions by phone and webchat. This number will increase as additional staff are assigned.

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