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

If I can just correct the record, we are not taking on 1,000 new staff. What I said was that by the end of March we hope to have about 900 staff in the Passport Office. We currently have about 770. The context of that is we had about 467 in the middle of last summer, so the staff numbers are almost doubling.

On first-time passports, I emphasise we have to make sure the integrity of the system is protected and we have robust processes in place to protect the integrity of the system against fraud, potential child abduction or any of the things we are expected to protect it against. We have very good anti-fraud systems in the passport system. However, as a result of that and the systems that are in place, we do need extra paperwork in terms of documentation from applicants who are applying online or offline for children.

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