Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I greatly appreciate the opportunity afforded by the Ceann Comhairle to raise this vital issue. Over the last four months, nearly five months now, the Passport Office has been closed. The reason we are raising this is nothing to do with travel. It is not like anyone is expecting to be going abroad any time soon. It is, instead, the sheer fact that a passport is a vital piece of identification for so many people, not only in this State but also for many Irish citizens abroad. This issue has come to a critical point now where people are desperately in need of getting their passports renewed or their passports back out of the passport system. We are talking about Irish citizens who applied for passports for their children in other jurisdictions and now not only do their children not have identification but they do not either. This is prohibiting those people from doing ordinary, everyday business in this State and wider afield. It is stopping people making many plans and having that form of identification which would allow them to be a part of a functioning society. It is vitally important that the services which are provided are reopened as soon as possible.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Deputy Carroll MacNeill has arrived just in the nick of time.

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle and also the Minister of State for attending to listen to us raise this significant issue for people. Obviously, passport services have had to be decreased and the Passport Office closed for this period. What I want to ask about is the contingency planning for reopening. There is a significant backlog in excess of 80,000 applications. We were getting queries at an early stage where some people concerned had genuine life-and-death emergencies where they needed to access a passport. I thank the Passport Office for facilitating people in those situations.

Over time, however, it can be seen that the balance and the pressure on people, through their human experience, has been different. I refer to situations such as requiring a passport to open a bank account or to apply for or accept a college place, for example. These more natural things have revealed themselves as the pandemic has gone on. We need to know the contingency planning for addressing this situation quickly. What are we going to do to ensure we can address this backlog? Will there be longer working hours and more working days? How are we going to ensure we get the passports to those people who will need them in the coming months?

Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputies Richmond and Carroll MacNeill for raising what is an important issue which is being raised with Deputies in constituency offices the length and breadth of the country. It has happened for several reasons, as the Deputies outlined. I am pleased to report that the Passport Service continues to provide a high quality, essential service in line with the Government's public health guidance outlined in our national framework on living with Covid-19.

At the outset, I express the apologies of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Coveney, who has asked me to stand in for him. However, I had a good conversation with the Minister on this issue today to get the most up-to-date information regarding the situation for the Deputies regarding passport services. The Passport Service has been operational in respect of five key essential fronts during the pandemic. These have included providing passports for emergency and urgent cases. More than 40,000 passports have been issued this year, including approximately 3,000 in response to urgent requests from our citizens at home and abroad. Customer service information has also been provided to more than 40,000 citizens via our web chat service, as well as consular services to our citizens overseas through our consular helpline. The staff of the Passport Office have also been assisting in contact tracing for the HSE as part of the wider national response to Covid-19. They have also been assisting the Department Social Protection to facilitate the processing of essential Covid-19-related benefits.

I emphasise to the House that throughout the pandemic the Passport Service has been open to serving citizens in its highly professional manner. The service is fully committed to assisting citizens who have been or are required to travel due to the death or serious illness of a family member and or who give evidence of a reasonable cause for travel, as defined in the recent amendment to the Health Act 1947, which came into effect on 1 February. The Passport Office is continuing to process renewals and first-time applications where the citizen is only entitled to Irish citizenship or legally required to hold a passport for residency purposes. The urgent service also assists citizens who are resident abroad who require a valid passport for visa purposes or citizens who require a renewal for work purposes.

On behalf of the Government, I commend the staff of the Passport Office for their dedication to their mission of providing a front-line public service during this pandemic and also contributing to the national response in these unprecedented times. I take great pleasure in commending the Passport Office for that work and for its contribution to the national response, which has tested our communities overseas and our people here also.

Were it not for the current pandemic, the Passport Office would be fully operational and the award-winning service would be operating at full throttle. Several organisational adaptations have already been made which have increased efficiency and output, while maintaining the necessary health and safety protocols. This is already making a difference. The Passport Service has a plan in place which will become operational in the near future as restrictions are eased and which will quickly clear the backlog of passport applications.

In the meantime, urgent passport applications will continue to be dealt with expeditiously and the webchat service is available to answer queries about specific circumstances.

On the specific points raised by Deputy Richmond about people who need a passport for reasons other than travel, it is a real issue, and I know that it has been raised with Deputy Richmond in his constituency on a number of occasions. It is one that we are mindful of and it is why we want to get the service back up and running as quickly as possible to make sure we get the full amount back to everybody else.

That leads on to the point raised by Deputy Carroll MacNeill in respect of the plan for clearing the backlog. I can assure the Deputy that the passport service expects that most applications received this year will come from adult renewals and we anticipate to return to a five-day turnaround for these applications within six to eight weeks of reopening. The Central Statistics Office survey from 1 March indicated that 15% of people expect to take an overseas holiday in 2021. In addition, while it is projected that most adults will have received their first dose of vaccine by the end of June, the timeline for children is longer, and we expect that this will impact on the number of families travelling overseas this summer. Therefore, the number of applications received for children are expected to remain low.

As articulated by the two Deputies, there are many reasons people need a passport. We are acutely aware of that. We want to get the service back up and running. We are dealing with emergency cases as it is and we will get back to full service quickly.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

We will return to the Minister of a State in a few moments. We short-changed the two Deputies in the first round, so we can give them two minutes each in this round. I call Deputy Richmond.

Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Ceann Comhairle could never short-change us. I appreciate his magnanimous approach to the clock.

I fundamentally and absolutely agree with the Minister of State that the passport service to date has been excellent. We all remember, as public representatives over the last decade, how difficult it used to be and how swift the new scheme has been, particularly with online renewals, and the amount of effort that was put in by officials in the Department of Foreign Affairs and outside individuals to ensure that we have, as the Minister of State rightly describes it, an award-winning service.

However, crucially, we do not have a service at the moment. We have a bare-minimum emergency service that is operating at a fraction of the capacity at which it operates in normal times. Even though people are not travelling, the issue is nothing to do with travel. It is about the fundamental right of access to the most important document, I would argue, that any citizen of this State needs to hold. Not everyone drives a car. People cannot even get a driving licence now if they need it because of the backlog. However, a passport is vitally important.

I wish to stress again the absolute limbo that Irish citizens abroad are stuck in, particularly when trying to apply for a passport or register the birth of a new Irish citizen aboard. I will be quite frank. My passport has long expired and I do not know when I am going to be able to get it renewed. It is not that I intend to leave the jurisdiction any time soon. There are hundreds of people, not just in my constituency and those of the Minister of State and Deputy Carroll MacNeill beside mine, who are genuinely worried. They worry that if they apply they will lose documents and passports for weeks and months on end if they are applying for a passport for their children.

At the end of the day, I appreciate the Minister of State's comments and the intervention by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Deputy Coveney. He spoke with me directly today on the issue. However, ultimately, the system as is, regardless of level 5 restrictions, is not good enough. We need to be able to provide a credible, real service to which the citizens of this State are entitled. It is not something that can be afforded to them - it is their right.

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

A passport is a bit like a security blanket. It is something that we need to know is in a drawer for the day when something happens and we need it. We do not know why we will need it in future. Perhaps it may be to travel to see a relative. That is what I am trying to articulate.

People have understood that the service has had to be closed. I thank the Minister of State for confirming that the backlog will be addressed. It is about the communication around that to reassure, for example, the lady who contacted me today, whose passport expires in July. She is not worried about it today but come June, she will be genuinely stressed about it. While some might assert that she will not be travelling as none of us are planning travel at this stage, we do know that there are cases where people need to travel for essential reasons, such as a death in the family. It is about providing that security to people and communicating clearly that the service will resume, it is recognised that there is a backlog and a plan is in place. It must be communicated to them that their concerns are understood and attempts are being made to address them. People should be given timelines so that they know when they will receive their passports.

However, I do want to thank the Passport Office for the exceptional work it has done under pressurised conditions. Of course, the staff have been taken to do more urgent work for the State in response to Covid and in processing the PUP. I thank the staff for being available in those emergency situations and for resolving issues in cases where they have been brought in and asked to consider various applications.

We are moving into a new phase in the pandemic. Some day we will see discretionary international travel return, rather than just emergency international travel. Understandably, people like to have their passport in their back pocket. It is a fundamental document of the State and a person. It is important to them that they can get it back and put it in their drawer, up-to-date, ready for the day when they either need it or want it.

Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Both Deputies Richmond and Carroll MacNeill have outlined very well the reasons we need to get back to full service. Nobody wants to do that more than the staff of the passport service in a safe way as soon as public health guidelines allow.

It is helpful to put on the record that the volume of applications received in the past year has been significantly impacted by the pandemic. As a result, the number of applications currently in our system awaiting processing is quite low in terms of a normal year. That is not to in any way underestimate or play down the concerns that have been raised and well articulated here. They are very valid concerns. People are concerned about getting their passports for a variety of reasons, not just for travelling, as outlined by Deputy Richmond.

Currently, there are just over 92,000 applications in the system, most of which have been received in the past three months. While this might seem like a large number, in the context of the passport service, it is quite small. In the same period in 2019, approximately 420,000 applications were received, and in 2020 approximately 260,000 applications were received. Two thirds of applications are for renewals of passports. That is important because once services are resumed fully, these can be processed quite quickly because of the technological advancements in the passport service over the past four years. First time applications take longer due to the volume of associated documentation and the stringent verification process that must be carried out to ensure that we maintain the integrity of the Irish passport.

It is important to bear in mind that the Irish passport is considered to be one of the most valued in the world due to its visa-free status in 186 countries. Approximately one third of the applications in our system are for first time applicants.

The fact that the Irish passport is such a prized document was at the heart of the points made by Deputies Carroll MacNeill and Richmond. We take that on board. We want to get back to full processing as quickly as the public health guidelines allow. That is our determination. I commend the staff in the passport service for working under the difficult circumstances of the pandemic over the last year.