Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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32. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade his plans to clear the significant backlog that is delaying persons receiving a passport in a prompt and efficient manner, if his attention has been drawn to the fact that the current delays are causing significant hardship and if extra staff are being recruited or allocated to urgently deal with the issue. [27901/18]

Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein)
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67. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the steps being taken to address the increased demand for Irish passports and the long delays in having passports issued. [27895/18]

Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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My office and that of other Deputies have been inundated with requests from constituents regarding the current delays in getting passports. I thank the hard-pressed staff in the Passport Service and the Department for helping in some of those more difficult cases. Unfortunately, delays are frustrating and are causing families undue stress. What is causing the delay? Is the Tánaiste providing additional resources to clear the backlog? Could he give us a sense of what the problem is and why there is no indication that there are problems within the passport system and why there are delays?

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I propose taking Questions Nos. 32 and 67 together.

The Passport Service is currently in its peak season for passport demand with the vast majority of applications being received between February and August each year. More than 500,000 applications have been received to date. For the first five months of the year, applications received are up by more than 8%.

The service monitors the volume of applications on an ongoing basis to ensure that resources are available to meet demand. To respond to anticipated application increases and to seasonal demands, the service received sanction for 220 temporary clerical officers, TCOs, this year to be appointed to the passport offices in Dublin and Cork. These TCOs are working together with permanent staff to process passport applications and to deal with the high number of inquiries being made through service's various customer service channels.

The Passport Service is meeting its target turnaround times for certain categories of applicants and I acknowledge that there are delays in other categories. For example, for applicants who have used the online passport application service, the target turnaround timeframe of ten working days plus postage is being met and, in 50% of cases, applications are being processed in five working days plus postage. The target timeframe of 15 working days for Passport Express renewals and Northern Ireland Passport Express renewals is also currently being met.

The Passport Service acknowledges that for certain categories such as first-time applicants and applicants with lost or stolen passports, processing is taking longer due to additional security checks. I am sure the Deputies will understand that first-time applicants require additional security measures, including robust identity verification and entitlement checking and as a result can take longer to process. Babies and children applying for their first passport also fall within this category and in cases where other family members have submitted renewal applications alongside the first-time application, all applications will be linked in the system and will only be dealt with once the necessary checks have been completed on the first-time passport. This has caused particular problems for families.

The Passport Service is doing everything to ensure passports are processed as quickly as possible. In addition to the intake of TCOs and the use of targeted overtime, experienced staff from across the Department have been redeployed to process applications and respond to customer queries. I understand that more than 30 people in the Department have been redeployed to the service.

A central element of my Department's approach to managing increasing application volumes has been the implementation of service improvements to minimise the impact of unusually high application volumes on turnaround times. The passport reform programme is delivering major upgrades to technology platforms and business processes as well as significant customer service improvements. The online passport application service, which was launched last year, will continue to make a major contribution to the effective management of exceptionally high volumes by allowing existing resources to be more effectively deployed within the service. I expect that by the end of the year this online service will also be available for renewing children's applications, which will be a major step forward for families. I encourage all applicants wherever possible to renew their passports using the online renewal service.

I am satisfied that the combination of delivery upgrades to the technology platforms and application process together with the recruitment of adequate TCOs and the reallocation of resources from other divisions on a temporary basis is sufficient to meet demand during this peak season for thePassport Service. I also acknowledge that the service has not been what we would like it to be for the past number of weeks. The staff have been doing a heroic job given the extraordinary volumes with which they have had to deal. We are reviewing how the peak period is being managed this year to ensure we learn lessons for next year. Once we get over the peak demand period, which is coming to an end, the Deputies will find that the process will be much easier.

Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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I am still at a loss about what the problem is within the system. I do not know if the Tánaiste knows what is the problem. Is it a lack of staff, the printing machine or the volume of applications? He said there has been an exceptional increase in the volume of applications but we realise that there would be a greater demand this year. An official from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade who appeared before the Committee of Public Accounts said that it had taken more than six weeks to process 27,000 passport applications, which is 30 working days, while it had taken up to eight weeks to process a further 22,000 applications, which is 40 working days. There are, clearly, problems within the system.

When applicants go online to look for information, they are not told that there is a delay in the system. If they go on Twitter, they do not get an answer. People are telling me that when they ring the Passport Office, they are not getting through or are not getting information. If they email, they do not get information. There is a problem there with regard to up-to-date information and that needs to be resolved. People are applying much earlier to renew their passports but there is still a difficulty in the system. I do not criticising staff. I do not know what is wrong, which is why I am asking the Tánaiste for an answer.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I will tell the Deputy what I see as wrong. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of passport applications across multiple platforms. The online application process has worked well and we are ahead of our turnaround target times. In many cases, the turnaround time for half of online applicants is five days rather than ten days plus postage. Problems occur when children are applying for a first-time passport and when passports have been lost and people need a replacement quickly. They make an application and follow that up with a phone call or an email but do not get an answer. We are trying to deal with tens of thousands of phone calls and emails each week. The pressure this places on staff at peak time coupled with significant increases in demand for passports across all platforms has resulted in delays. As a result, we have taken on an extra 220 temporary staff, which we take on every year in the build up to the peak season, but we have also redeployed approximately 30 experienced staff on a temporary basis to respond to people by phone and email more quickly. If people do not get responses by phone, they tend to work through Deputies' offices and so on and, therefore, we have had to put systems in place to deal politically with many applications, which is not the way to do this efficiently.

Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein)
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My question also concerns the long delays in issuing passports. I take on board the Tánaiste's point that there has been a huge increase in the number of passport applications, which is a positive in a way as it reflects the popularity of the Irish passport. There are problems with new applicants, renewals and children's passports, and there is still a problem with online applications. Constituents in Laois-Offaly come to me constantly with cases like this. Sometimes with the help of staff, we manage to get them through while, at other times, we do not. I understand that staff are working hard and that additional staff have been deployed but there are delays for new applicants, renewals and online applications.

This morning, I dealt with the case of a family in Portlaoise that is going to Lourdes. It has been promised that its outstanding passport will be ready today or tomorrow and I hope that is what transpires. The passport in question was applied for seven weeks ago, in early May. Constituents are relaying back to us that there are particular problems trying to get responses from the Dublin office about the current status of their passport applications. We are encouraging people to apply online. Although I agree with the Tánaiste that it is a better system, there are delays that need to be addressed. Substantial revenues are being generated from the issuing of passports. I do not know how the financing of it works out. People in Laois, Offaly and other parts of the country are anxious for passports to be issued more speedily.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I am aware of the problems that have arisen this year because they have translated into political requests. Virtually every Member of this House has been asked to solve individual problems for families and constituents. That is an ineffective way of dealing with tens of thousands of passports each week. We have to put systems in place that deal more comprehensively with people's concerns. It should also be possible to deal with emergency situations quickly without stalling the processing of the passport applications of everybody else. A considerable improvement will be seen when it becomes possible to apply for child passports online. When a number of family members are renewing passports currently, the adult passports are delayed because of the security checks required for child passports. We are assessing at the moment. We are learning lessons from what has happened this year. The problems stem back to closure of the Passport Office for a couple of days during the difficult weather period. While the backlog started then, the difficulty experienced at that time is certainly not the sole reason for the backlog. When the peak period has passed, the Passport Office will deal with queries under all categories in a much more efficient way. We need to learn lessons for next year to ensure we do not ask staff to do an impossible job, which is what happened for a time this year.

Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister has spoken about "allowing existing resources to be more effectively deployed within the Passport Service", just as he did when this issue came up in March. The problems within the Passport Office's communications system need to be looked at as part of any review. People are frustrated because information is key. They want to know what can be done to get information. That is why they are contacting politicians. I agree that this is not the right way to get a passport. We need to get as much accurate information as possible to people who are desperately seeking information about the possibility of getting their passports in time to go on the holidays for which they have been saving all year. Individual cases are very fine, but we need to focus on the system that comprises those cases. We have heard about families in which everyone other than one child has got a passport. That creates difficulties in systems. I wish the Minister well but the communication system needs to be beefed up.

Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein)
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I concur with what has been said about the importance of information flow. I appreciate that this is a huge challenge. I accept that thousands of applications are being dealt with each week. This fast-moving process puts huge demands on staff and generates revenue. Many other parts of government do not draw in revenue as part of the services they provide. We need to up our game. It is good that the Irish passport is so popular in the North, in the South and with the diaspora. We welcome that. I was one of many people who thought after the Brexit referendum that there would be huge demand for Irish passports from people living in England, Scotland, Wales and the North of Ireland for a year or so, but that this would abate after the initial big bang. That has not happened, which shows that the demand for Irish passports will remain strong and that is the key message. We need to put in place a system to try to deal with that in the Cork and Dublin offices.

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Standing Orders permit me to call Deputy Scanlon for a brief supplementary question.

Eamon Scanlon (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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We should recognise the efforts of the staff of the Minister's office because they are helpful. I would like to make a suggestion. When people are booking their holidays two or three months in advance, would it be possible for the airlines to flag with them that they should check whether their passports are valid? If people checked their passports far in advance, there would be no issues. At the moment, the issue does not arise until people are checking in. That is where the problem is. If people were warned at the time of booking that they should check their passports, it would save a lot of trouble.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I agree that better communication is the key. If thousands of people are trying to get through to the Passport Office at the same time, such volumes clearly make it impossible for the relatively small number of staff in the office to speak to everybody. It is important to note that changes for the better have been made in recent years. As a result of the use of technology and online systems, the vast majority of passports are being delivered on time or quicker than the anticipated turnaround time. Given that 500,000 passports have been issued so far this year, a huge number of people are affected if problems arise even in just 10% of cases. It takes time to talk through the issues. I am conscious that there are many repeat phone calls from people who are desperate to talk to somebody to get some certainty in advance of their holidays, business travel or emergency travel situations. We are looking at communications with a view to giving people the ability to get an update on the status of their passport applications within the system without having to contact politicians to get that information. While it is useful for Deputies to be able to assist in emergency situations, their offices should not be turned into passport processing offices. We are trying to put in place a system to deal with these matters in a much more efficient way.