Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for being here. At the outset, I acknowledge the great work done by the passport service and the staff. By and large, they provide a very good service. I wish to raise an issue relating to how passports are processed, and in particular, the verification with An Garda Síochána.

All in this House are aware that the Passport Office contacts Garda stations by telephone to verify that a passport has been stamped in the Garda station. I understand that is not done for every passport but, rather, is done on a selective basis. That has presented significant difficulties. As a public representative, I have come across dozens of cases where applications have been cancelled because the Passport Office has not been able to make contact with the Garda station.

We understand that Garda stations are busy places and unfortunately, the phone is often not answered. We would like to change this but it is the reality of the situation at present. Very often, these passport applications are in the system for many weeks before this happens and they are then cancelled with a short period left for the individuals' or the families' travel requirements. What has sparked me to raise this issue is a case I recently came across where it happened twice in the context of the same application. The application for a new passport for one of the children in the family was cancelled for the second time only a week before travelling for a family holiday. I think we would all agree that this is not an acceptable situation and there is a very obvious solution to this. The system of phoning a Garda station is clearly archaic, inefficient and outdated. It needs to be changed urgently, as part of this process. I am not suggesting anything radical but I suggest that we change it to an email system. This would be far more efficient. It would provide a clear, written record of the communication between the Passport Office and the Garda stations and it would give gardaí the opportunity to come back within a day or so to the Passport Office. It would be a far better and more efficient system of verification, I would argue. I ask the Minister to take this issue back to the Department, to make this change. It would avoid families having the significant stress and anxiety of passport applications being cancelled with a short period left to rectify the situation before they travel. As in all other cases, the applicants in this particular case did nothing wrong. The family went to the district Garda HQ and they did everything they could to have their passport in the best shape possible but unfortunately, this issue arose. As I have said, I have come across this numerous times over the years and it finally needs to be addressed. Verbal communication is open to misinterpretation, miscommunication and so on. It is important that there is a clear record of the communication of the verification. We can debate in the House whether it is necessary for gardaí to verify a passport application but that is a debate for another day. I think that needs to be looked at as well but that can be reviewed at another point. For now, it is important that the system is updated and brought into the 21st century so that we do not have families going through this unnecessary anxiety and stress when trying to get a passport application completed.

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