Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

My office is dealing with a great many passport-related queries every week and is finding it more and more frustrating. I acknowledge that the online system works well for straightforward renewals. It is with the type of application I deal with that there are issues. The urgent passport number will only tell us what we already know. If you apply for a passport in an emergency, the passport cannot be intercepted. When we get to the point at which we can get a passport, we are given a number and told it will be out within two days.

The problem is that somebody may need an emergency passport and may need to collect it now. The difficulty we, as politicians, are having is that the phone lines to the Passport Office are constantly busy. I understand what the Minister has said about the number of applications. Can we fast-track this so that a politician can actually contact a certain number and get a response?

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