Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, for taking the time this evening. This has no bearing on the Minister of State whatsoever, but I want to point out my disappointment that we could not wheel out any one of the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, the Minister, Deputy Ryan, the Minister of State, Deputy Byrne, or the Minister, Deputy Coveney, who would have been appropriate to this issue, because I know the Minister of State will agree with me and she will read out a prepared response-----

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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The protocol is that the Department involved should make contact with the Deputy tabling the Topical Issue matter and there should be the opportunity to agree or not agree, as the case might be. Some of those Departments, if they did not, should have been in touch with the Deputy about this Topical Issue matter.

Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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In fairness, they were. This is, again, no reflection on the Minister of State, Deputy Butler. I am pleased she is here. The Departments were in contact. They asked me which Department and I helped in their interpretation and said any of the four I have indicated. Funnily enough, and call me old fashioned, I did not mention the Department of Health and specifically did not mention mental health. That is for others to determine.

I want to talk about post offices, which as the House will be aware have been under threat for many years. Consecutive governments of all colours and none have paid lip service. We have gone to the public meetings, we have listened and we have done the three bags full, but we have continued to close them, digitise, strip out services and so on.

Next week, the postmasters' union will contemplate whether to take industrial action and withdraw services. Meanwhile we had a very detailed Grant Thornton report published in 2020. The shortfall is only €17 million for a service the report indicates gives a value to the communities of between €335 million and €750 million. These are hardly snake oil claims from an unknown company because the Government subcontracts many of its decisions to companies just like Grant Thornton.

I have some suggestions. The Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, was given specific responsibility last year, having trawled through all Government agencies in the Departments, to see what additional work we could give to post offices. As the Minister of State will see, the Ceann Comhairle will agree, and Deputies who are here a hundred years, such as Deputy Ring, will have seen hundreds of times before, there are more questions on the Question Paper today to do with passport applications than in the history of the State. Twenty years ago, when I came here first, there was a drop box out at Leinster House, and when we came in we would put in the applications. If there was a problem, you would get a call, you would get it dealt with and you would be going home to the west on a Thursday evening with the passport for whatever family. Now we have gone in reverse. There is an additional €10 million in the budget, 300 more staff but still there is one child in my neighbourhood waiting eight months for a passport.

I will make an outrageous proposal that we look, as we have often done in the past, to the UK where they have a check and send proposal for UK passports for which the postmaster gets £16 or, if we convert it at today's rate, approximately €19.20. This would go a long way to help the many families throughout the country with basic errors. The postmaster could say the date is wrong, the signature by the garda is in the wrong place or the consent form is not uploaded correctly. We could have a level 1 checking system instead of pallets of post in Balbriggan or, for the Munster passport applications, in Cork. No doubt the public would quite happily pay a score for the purpose so that they would not have to cancel the holiday or miss the loved one's funeral or so they could get medical attention on the cross-border scheme or whatever else.

I suggest to the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, on whom the postmasters' union has been waiting since before Christmas to come back to it, that here is one tangible measure with which not one Deputy in this House or Senator in the Seanad would disagree. Let the post office do a level 1 check on all applications and help applicants to upload digitally. Then we could, in the words of some of my own intelligence officers in the Passport Office, take up to four days' work off an individual application as they are currently being processed.

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Deputy MacSharry for the question. I am happy to be here tonight as several of my colleagues are laid low with Covid. When you are a junior Minister, you cover many issues. Today, I am on ministerial rota duty and that is why the Deputy is looking at me across the floor tonight, delighted to be here.

I met the Waterford postmasters three weeks ago to discuss various issues of the postmasters' union that Deputy MacSharry has raised, and I was delighted to meet with them.

The passport service is proactively managing the current demand for passports and has put in place resources and structures to address the estimated significant increase in demand for passports in 2022. The passport service expects to receive 1.4 million passport applications in 2022. So far this year, it has issued 264,000 passports. This means 41% of the total number of passports issued in 2021 have been issued in less than three months this year.

There are currently more than 182,000 applications in the passport service system. While this is a very high volume of applications, it does not represent a backlog. These applications are all being processed in the usual way, with a continuous stream of new applications and a continuous dispatch of completed passports occurring every day. The passport service is currently processing 45% of adult online renewal applications in one working day, while 95% of online child renewal passports are issued within the advertised processing time of 15 working days. These turnaround times, especially for adult renewals, are possible due to the inherent efficiencies of the online system and cannot be achieved in the traditional paper-based system. They also compare very favourably with processing times internationally in countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Denmark and Spain.

As a result of the investment the Department is making in the passport service, the turnaround time for first-time applications has recently been reduced from 40 working days to 35 working days, even in the context of the unprecedented volume of applications being received. The passport service is focused on reducing this processing time even further in the coming months. The passport service continually works to streamline the application process and to improve its customer service. It also monitors and responds to issues that arise for applicants during the application process.

A number of measures are in place to ensure that passport applicants complete their applications correctly. The Department of Foreign Affairs website has been updated to include a new passport service section where applicants can easily find out what additional documents are required for their type of application. When applying online, the applicant is given comprehensive instructions on what documents to submit. The customer service hub is available to answer applicants' questions by phone or webchat. The customer service hub handled almost 170,000 queries in 2021 and has responded to more than 60,000 queries since the beginning of this year.

The passport service is also working on public education materials, including video tutorials, with a view to assisting applicants to complete their application correctly. The passport service operates its paper-based, mail-in passport express service through An Post. This provides an option for citizens to submit their passport application through the network of more than 1,000 post offices across the State. All types of passport application, both renewal and first-time applications, can be made via the passport express service. The Department of Foreign Affairs is in regular contact with An Post regarding possible initiatives to develop this service further. Currently, more than 90% of passport applications from Ireland and overseas are received through the passport online service. This is an increase from 47% in 2019.

Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister of State for reading out the reply. I appreciate that she is here, but the reply is an insult. We got a bunch of statistics. The passport service has 900 staff, has received €10 million in extra funding and it is going to be the devil and all. I expect the other Deputies in the Chamber and you, a Cheann Comhairle, would agree that the lived experience of passport processing in this country is that we have gone into reverse, at warp speed.

The helpline for Deputies is not fit for purpose. I will give an example. The Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, will be annoyed that I am putting this on the record but I am going to do so. He rang the Deputies' helpline on a Tuesday and said he was a Minister and had someone who needed a passport by the Friday to attend a funeral in New York on the Saturday. He was told there was not a hope. He was laughed at. He dutifully went back and told the person seeking the passport he was sorry but he could not make it happen. The Minister of State was told he was useless and the person said he would go to someone else to get this done. The Minister of State told the person he was welcome to do so but that, in his view, the person would not succeed. On the following Friday, the man in question rang the Minister of State from an airport departure lounge and told him he was useless as he had collected his passport at Iveagh House the previous night. That is unacceptable, but it is consistent with the way elected Members of this Oireachtas are being treated. It is consistent because we are merely to be tolerated while Robert Watt and Co run the whole show.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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I do not think we need to bring Mr. Watt into this.

Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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He is a very well-paid public servant.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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I do not think we need-----

Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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I happened to use parliamentary privilege to put his name on the record.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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We do not need to bring his name into this particular debate.

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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I reiterate that more than 90% of passport applications from Ireland and overseas are currently received through the passport online service. This is an increase from a figure of 47% in 2019. While the Department of Foreign Affairs has no current plans to enable passport applications to be checked at An Post locations, the passport service will continue to consider ways in which to enhance customer experience and reduce errors on applications.