Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I met with officials yesterday in relation to the Passport Service. No one identified that issue with the tracker but I will revert and communicate what the Deputy said. Our Department would welcome the digitisation of the records maintained by An Garda Síochána when witnessing applications. Significant improvements have been made. The birth certificate has seen a huge improvement and significant innovation. I think that is now up to 16,000. We are constantly looking at ways to reduce the number of original documents that have to be submitted. The more we can do online the better. In the last two years post Covid, there has been an exponential rise in passport applications. We are at 510,000 for the first six months of this year and will probably get to 1 million, as we did last year. We have to improve and constantly innovate, are doing that and will continue to do that.

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