James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Maybe there is not a backlog as such but the processing times for the applications, particularly for first-time applications, are what I am coming at. I accept there are systems in place and I acknowledge the fantastic and phenomenal work that is being done by officials in the Department of Foreign Affairs to try to cut down on waiting times, and some turnarounds have been as short as a number of days for people we have been dealing with. I am raising those genuine cases where people find themselves having identified an error at the end of the estimated date for the application to be completed and finding only at the end of the process that there is an error in the application. That may take a number of weeks to sort out. These are just a limited number of cases and perhaps now that the backlog has been tackled, as the Minister has said, we can do something about that. I am genuine in my remarks on that and I am not trying to pick holes but it would save a lot of people's international travel and prevent errors or mishaps occurring in the future and it is something that might not take an awful lot of effort to make a positive difference.

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