Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Having listened to the debate, it is right to say that people are very frustrated. We are probably now known as lastchance.com. I have listened to the stories that have been shared in the course of the debate. I have a pain in my head because I have spent the past three quarters of an hour on the phone trying to sort out issues for one lady.

She called the Passport Office a total of 354 times but could not get through. Thankfully, I got through today and I have to say the staff in the Passport Office are excellent. They are courteous and helpful. They are absolutely amazing but the problem is a lack of resources to help people. We have all listened to people and their families who are stressed.

There is a need for public information on booking websites and so forth. Messages should flash up reminding people to check their passports. The same should apply to travel agencies. The Department should also run advertising campaigns on television because not everybody is computer literate.

We are pitting people against each other today. Reference has been made to the staff in the Passport Office and while Covid does provide some excuse, there should have been a way for the staff to continue working because a passport is a vital document.

Every single day, each and every Deputy in this House is getting bombarded with queries from people who are distressed and panicking. Reference has been also made to the tracking system. We all use it to check the status of our constituents' passports. Often an application is past the issuing date by up to five weeks and yet nothing has happened. Another issue is the postal system. Again, possibly due to Covid, the staff did not touch postal applications but people were not aware of that. People have come in to me in a panic and have made new appointments with the passport office at a cost of €150 to try to get their passports processed.

Whatever plan the Passport Office comes up with, I appeal to the Minister to provide the necessary resources. There are lots of people out there looking for jobs. Surely we can get people to come in, assess the problem, let everybody live in harmony and let everybody be happy and less stressed.

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