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

On advertising, I hope the Deputy has noticed the campaign that has been very active during January to get people to check their passports. We have ads in newspapers and on radio to encourage people to check their passports early if they are planning to travel this year so that we can try to get as many applications in as early as we can for travel, predominantly over the summer months. I am sure there will also be travel over the mid-term and Easter too. We have an advertising campaign and I will feed back the Deputy's suggestion about airline sites.

The official turnaround time for first-time passports is 40 working days. We are going to try to bring that down significantly. However, many of the first-time applications that get stuck in the system are not always stuck because of delays on the Department's side. We are often waiting for forms, whether identity forms or security-based forms. We are working on that.

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