Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have dealt with many cases involving issues with photographs. In fact, my own passport was one. Are proper instructions being given? Are we communicating properly to the chemists and others who are appointed to take the photographs?

Many practical measures could be taken within the system to speed the process up, but there needs to be urgency and the staff who have been recruited need to be trained outside the Passport Office, as it were. The verification issue also needs to be addressed.

No one wants to infringe on the integrity of the passport application process, but right here and right now, people are losing thousands of euro that they do not have in the first place and cannot afford to lose. Many of them have not had holidays for years. There are children watching all of their friends going abroad on school tours, unable to join them. This is the last thing that people need - people who have saved, scrimped and done without to get abroad. We need to fix this problem. I hear what the Minister of State is saying and it is right to put the message out there that people should only apply online, but that message should have gone out much earlier and should have permeated every household.

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