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

Yes, that is my understanding but I will come back to the Deputy on that. There is a question later.

On the specific case, the Deputy acknowledged the photograph was a problem. We are always looking at ways to try to make it more efficient and effective through new technologies and to reduce the room for human error and the number of original documents required. We all get phone calls about passport cases, as Deputy Carthy mentioned earlier, from people saying their passport is due to expire next week and asking is there anything we can do. To be fair to the Passport Office staff, the bulk of them come back to human error. My view is that our obligation is to help people as best we can with all the constraints, and the Department agrees with this. There is a recruitment campaign under way at the moment to get more staff. There are two things people need to do: check their passports and apply early online, and get assistance to apply online. If people apply online, they will get a really quick response.

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