Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge the staff of the Passport Office who turned a very difficult situation around. Unfortunately, the many people who missed the opportunity to either go on holiday or attend important events will never be forgiving with regard to the experience they had when things were at their worst. Nonetheless, I acknowledge that there has been much improvement and that when the passport service works, it works well. For simple renewals, the process is effective and efficient. Everybody involved with it should be commended. There is a difficulty, which is dealt with in a later question, with the process for first-time applications relating to children. When new and additional information is sought or there is a query on the information, an application is effectively put back to the end of the queue and the entire process starts again. I ask the Tánaiste if there are efforts to resolve that particular issue.

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