Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This is hugely stressful for people who are planning on travelling or need to travel for funerals or other reasons, including holidays and are waiting for documentation and a passport to be available in order to facilitate that travel. For a question to emerge at the last moment creates another scramble and means people are tighter on time. Why can applications not be validated once they arrive into the Passport Service? It would be an obvious action. People could queue afterwards if there is an issue, and they need to gather relevant documentation and have it ready for when the time comes to process the passport application.

It should not be possible to upload a photograph unless it is 100% correct. If the automated system accepts a photograph, that should be it. It makes no sense that people are asked for another photograph weeks later because there was an issue with the original one. The automated system should only accept correct photographs. That needs to be verified.

I ask the Minister to keep the possibility of a Cork printer under consideration because it would be a valuable asset to people based in the south west, especially those travelling out of Cork Airport. They would not have to travel all the way to Dublin to collect a passport and return home again to travel out of Cork or Shannon airports.

See this speech in context