Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The Passport Service is a unified service composed of three constituent offices located in Lower Mount Street in Dublin 2, in Balbriggan and on the South Mall in Cork. Passport applications from all citizens, whether at home or abroad, are distributed for processing across these three passport offices based on the type of application rather than on the place of residence of the applicant. The Passport Service provides a range of channels to Irish citizens wishing to apply for a passport. These include a postal application service, an online application service and an in-person, counter appointment facility in Dublin and Cork.

Some 90% of all passport applications, including first-time applications, are now being made online. The Passport Service is committed to continuing to offer a range of application channels, including a mail-in, paper-based service for citizens who are not eligible or do not wish to use online passport services. Passport Online is the priority channel for applications as there are many efficiencies built into the system for the applicant and the Passport Service. The Passport Online service can be accessed by all first-time applicants, including children and adults, in over 50 countries worldwide. All Irish citizens, including children, can use the online system to renew their passports from anywhere in the world. Passport Online offers Irish citizens the ability to apply online for their passport 24-7. It is a user-friendly, efficient service that consistently offers processing times up to four times faster than the paper-based passport renewal application system.

The paper-based, mail-in Passport Express service is available to citizens at almost 1,000 An Post post offices and at over 70 post office locations in Northern Ireland. With the availability of both Passport Online and the paper-based service, very few applicants are required to travel a significant distance to apply for their passports. In the relatively small number of cases where citizens need to travel urgently and do not have a valid passport, the passport offices in Dublin and Cork offer an urgent appointment service for passport renewal, with a one-day turnaround time. The Passport Service offices in Dublin and Cork have processed 5,000 urgent appointments to date in 2022. These urgent appointment applications represent less than 1% of the total number of applications received by the Passport Service since January 2022.

For applicants who have questions about their applications, the Passport Service customer service hub can be contacted by phone or by web chat. While I know it can be challenging to get through at busy times, the customer service hub has handled 95,000 queries to date this year. In April, customer service representatives handled an average of 1,000 queries daily. The Department has also recently updated its website, including the addition of a new Passport Service section where applicants can easily find out which documents are required for their type of application.

Overall, the current range of service options meets the needs of passport applicants and the service improvements, including those recently introduced and those planned, allow the Passport Service to provide this essential citizen service in an efficient and effective manner. While there are no plans to open additional passport offices, the Passport Service will continue to consider ways in which to enhance the customer experience for citizens. The Deputy has asked that an open mind be kept in this regard, and of course we will do so.

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