Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Déanfaidh mé mo dhícheall, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, just for you.

First, to welcome the Minister and I want to acknowledge the very dedicated team in the Passport Office which is producing on average 20,000 passports per week and the Minister of State’s updated figures may indicate even more than that.

I also wish to acknowledge the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Coveney, and his team. They work exceptionally hard to try to put in systems that work for citizens. Before I get into the substance of my motivation in raising this issue, in the past five working days I have had 30 phone calls and six emails on this subject. Overall, my constituency office has received approximately 250 to 260 queries about passport applications in the past few months. This is not just a matter in my constituency. The good citizens of Tyrone and Derry have also been in touch with me through their public representatives. I put that context on the record before turning to the substance motivating my request.

I am arguing for a passport office in the north west. I obviously use this as an opportunity to push for it to be located in Letterkenny because of its city status and previous gateway status. I ask that the new office be located somewhere in the north west. It would not be for online applications, because that is going to be the normal process for the renewal of passports and it is working well. I have spoken to the Minister, Deputy Coveney, about this issue. People living in Britain or in the North have the opportunity of going to Glasgow, Durham, Liverpool, Peterborough, Birmingham or Belfast if they wish to apply for a British passport. In this jurisdiction, the options are Dublin and Cork. or London or any of our other embassies round the world. Therefore, citizens living in the north west seeking an emergency passport appointment, perhaps for tomorrow morning, may find there are no emergency passport appointments available tomorrow morning in Dublin. The only option available then to somebody living in the north west is to go to London or Cork. If somebody in the north west is to go to an appointment that may be available tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. in Cork, that means there will be a need to travel to that city and to stay overnight. There is something distinctly wrong about this scenario.

I want to put on record today the idea of opening a passport office in the north west. It is worth pursuing because there is a massive gap here in respect of providing equal services to everybody on this island. The emergency passport application costs €150. People from Finglas, Kildare, Meath and Wicklow will find that €150 is still a lot of money, but that is all it will cost them and they may be able to travel by public transport or perhaps be able to nip into the passport office for a few minutes. For people living anywhere up in the north west, however, we are talking about them having to travel the night before and stay in hotel accommodation in the city. This travel will be undertaken on roads that are not motorways and from a region that does not have a train service. Therefore, a massive gap exists in this regard. The answer from the Minister of State will say everything is working well with respect to the online passport renewal service, which it is. Some of the turnaround times achieved are unbelievable. What I am looking for, however, is for the Department to keep an open mind on this issue. I will talk a bit more about the details later.

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