John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

First and foremost, I pay tribute to all the staff in the passport office who did exceptionally good work in very difficult circumstances. When I say "difficult circumstances" I mean the failure to prepare and foresee what was coming post Brexit. There was always going to be a surge in the number of people looking to travel post Covid and we did not have the proper people or resources in place to deal with what was a predictable increase in passport applications.

I welcome some of what the Minister said in regard to the increase in workforce, the increase in space on the Balbriggan site, as well as the online information campaign, of which we are seeing the benefits. However, there are still challenges with how first-time child passport applications are processed, in getting members of the Garda to witness the application, and the Garda contacting witnesses, which was a huge problem last year.

That needs to be addressed. Will the Tánaiste touch on that? This involved witnesses via An Garda Síochána and caused huge problems. The other area is getting to talk to a real person, so will the Tánaiste tell us how many additional staff have been deployed to man the lines and the hub to respond to people's concerns?

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