Imelda Munster (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This was prior to that. Another constituent of mine applied for a passport in early March and was due to travel on a date this month. That date came and went with no word from the Passport Office. When she eventually managed to make contact, it transpired there was a problem with her passport photo and she needed to provide a new one. That raises the question of whether the Passport Office only looks at the application on the set target date. That needs to be looked at. If it is only looking on that set target date, that is probably why so many people are not getting their passports before they fly. Again, these are simple things that could have been prevented. Resources could have been put in place to prevent this backlog.

In another case, the person applied on 9 December and was given a target date of 13 May. On 16 May they were told they needed new consent forms as the number eight on the date on the form was not legible. They were due to travel on 9 June. Despite the fact that the target date was 13 May, their first contact from the office was on 16 May, which was after the target date. They applied back in December. That is insane.

Communication is another problem, as we all know. People can spend hours and hours on the phone. I thought one constituent was grossly exaggerating when she told me she had tried to contact the Passport Office 162 times, to no avail. This is affecting families, and workers in particular. Many workers in this State are told when their set holiday dates are. One person might have to take their holidays in first two weeks of June and another in the first two weeks in July. They apply for their passport in ample time and miss their holiday because the passport never arrives. That family then has no holiday for the following year. They have been robbed of their two weeks away after being through Covid and all of that. They probably have been looking forward to it since last summer, thinking that this time next year they would be up and away. They are robbed of it because of a lack of resources, proper planning and not foreseeing the foreseeable. It is totally unfair.

The other issue I want to raise is the establishment of a branch of the Passport Office in the North. I cannot for the life of me understand why that has not happened or why there is a reluctance to provide one. There are more people applying for Irish passports in the Six Counties than British passports. We have been calling for this for years now. It is compounding the delays. Why not open an office up North and relieve the backlog here? It is a win-win.

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