Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am not saying that there are not cases every week and every day where interventions are needed in order to make sure that the public gets the service it expects. What I am saying is that over the past number of weeks we have issued an average of around 6,000 passports per day, which is in the region of 30% more than we have ever done. When I say that we are recruiting staff, we lose staff and gain staff like every large operation does, so we have to have ongoing recruitment. We have double the number of staff now than we had this time last year. That is a reflection of the planning that has happened.

We have seen a dramatic improvement in the call line for the public which has been under extraordinary pressure. We have taken on a lot of extra staff, some of whom have come from the HSE's contact tracing operations. Yesterday, the average waiting time for the public call line was six minutes. I asked the question of my Department and that is what I was told. That is a dramatic improvement on where we were a few weeks ago. We have an Oireachtas line that was set up specifically to help Members of the Oireachtas to deal with passport queries. We have reacted. Is the system perfect? No, it is not but we are dealing with huge numbers. By and large, the vast majority of passports are now delivered on time. Approximately half of adult renewals are delivered within 48 hours.

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