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

So far this year the Department has issued 400,000 passports, approaching 500,000. We are trying to put the most efficient system in place. We have a system whereby 4,000 to 5,000 passports a day are going out to people. If half those people were to collect their passports at the desk in the Passport Office, it would slow the system down considerably. We have a system that works with An Post whereby we have a constant throughput of passports by the thousand every day. If a passport needs to be pulled out of the system because an intervention is needed for whatever urgent reason, of course that can be facilitated. The whole point of limiting the number of representations to five per week is to try to ensure that Deputies focus on the genuine and urgent cases as opposed to their constituency offices becoming effective passport offices, which was the case for some Oireachtas Members in the past, as everybody knows.

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