John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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72. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the details of the current situation in respect of passport applications; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23370/22]

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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There is currently a great demand for passports, which is no surprise given the two years of Covid, during which people were not able to travel. Getting a passport in time is a huge problem. On top of that, Brexit has resulted in increased demand for Irish passports among Irish citizens, particularly in the North. This is causing huge problems and a huge backlog and, therefore, I ask the Minister to give an update and outline what exactly is happening in the Passport Service.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this issue because it is a major one for many people.

My Department has made an unprecedented investment in the passport service by way of additional staff and improvements to the passport and customer service systems. 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 in this essential citizen service.

More than 400,000 passports have been issued to date in 2022. In the same period in 2019, which saw the highest peak before this year, 355,000 passports were issued. More strikingly, in the busiest month in 2019 some 105,000 applications were received compared with 157,000 in February of this year. A total of 117,000 passports were issued in April alone, with 45% of adult renewal passports being issued within one to two working days.

It is stated there are currently 183,000 applications in the passport service system but I believe it is now closer to 190,000. I checked just before I came in. While there is a very high volume of applications in the system, this 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 happening every day.

I understand that as we approach the summer months, people will be thinking about going on holidays and renewing their passports. While I strongly urge everyone to apply for a passport in plenty of time, the urgent-appointment service is available for customers who wish to renew their passports at short notice. Customers availing of this service can renew a passport within one to four days in Dublin and within four days in Cork. Almost 5,000 customers have availed of this service since January of this year.

It is a priority for the passport service to improve processing times in 2022, particularly for first-time applicants, for whom I know there has been an issue. The passport service is implementing several further measures that will positively affect current turnaround times and further improve customer service, including working targeted overtime to focus on key areas such as first-time applications, intensive training of staff and enhanced public information resources. I am confident that the measures implemented will continue to help to reduce passport turnaround times in 2022.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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There are serious problems, particularly for first-time applicants, as the Minister acknowledged, but also those seeking children's passports. There are massive delays. I am working with a family whose story, I am sure, could be shared by every Deputy.

The family, who want to go away this weekend, are still waiting on their children's passports. The estimated time for the passports to be issued is not until later in the month, even though they applied well in time. Unfortunately, many families have had to cancel holidays up to this point. The fear is that unless measures are taken now, this will be replicated as we get closer to the summer period.

Yesterday alone, my office dealt with ten passport applications where the applications exceeded the target issue date. That was just one day, and I am sure that is replicated across the board. What percentage of applications at this point are exceeding the target date by which people have been told passports would be issued?

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Regarding turnaround times, the processing time for first-time applications reduced from 40 days to 30 days this year, a 25% reduction in processing times. That is the position as of 19 April. A new system for managing additional documentation is also in place, because the Deputy asked for it in the House. The clock does not start again when people correct their paperwork when there is a problem. Instead, we now have a prioritised completion time within 15 working days when documents are corrected, rather than starting a long process again.

In terms of staffing and accommodation, 162 new staff have joined the passport service since 1 January. There have been over 300 new staff since June of last year. The passport service is currently running a recruitment competition for temporary clerical officers, TCOs. When completed, there will be more than 900 staff in the passport service, a doubling of where we were last summer when we had about 460 staff. A new site in Swords opened in November last year that accommodates 140 staff. Balbriggan's expansion work began in January 2022 and will accommodate another 175 staff.

We are pumping huge resources in terms of human resources and increased space into a service we know will be under significant pressure this year. We are expecting approximately 1.4 million passport applications. We thought the figure might be a little bit higher at the start of the year, but we think it will be around that now. As I said, in comparison to last summer we have doubled the number of people in passport offices. There are still issues and we are trying to address them, but we are delivering thousands of passports every single day. The vast majority of applications run smoothly and we compare very well to other countries but there are, every now and again, glitches with and delays in the system and when that happens a lot of people talk to Deputies' offices, which is what we have seen this week.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister. He might be able to state what percentage of passport applications have exceeded the target issue date. He referred to glitches. Yesterday, the phone lines were down. They were down again today. There is a serious problem with the web chat function. I have spoken to people who have, for the past three weeks, tried to talk to people via web chat on a daily basis but cannot get hold of anyone. It is a serious problem. People cannot get clarity. As a last resort, they come to Deputies and ask us to try to make representations to get clarity in the first instance as to the current status of a passport application and whether can be sped up. There are clearly issues.

The Minister mentioned a number of offices. I have received information that there are serious problems in terms of staffing in the Cork passport office. The Minister might provide some statistics on whether there are staffing issues in there, and whether it is fully staffed or there are serious issues.

There are serious problems with passport applications from citizens in the North. There are significant delays. The Minister will be well aware that for the first time, applications for Irish passports have exceeded those for British passports. There are still problems in terms of people getting passports on time and getting clarity on the current status of an application. Even elected public representatives in the North cannot make representations on behalf of applicants. Many areas need to be tightened up to ensure that people do not have to cancel holidays which, unfortunately, is happening at this point.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I would not claim we have a perfect system. We do not. We are improving it all of the time. We are significantly upgrading the software this year, so we will have, in effect a new IT system running our passport system from next year, which will give us a lot more flexibility. It is not a perfect system but we are putting extraordinary resources into ensuring that we have turnaround times that compare very favourably internationally.

I would like to give the Deputy a sense of what other countries experience, countries that we would regard as being towards the top of the class in terms of the delivery of passports. In the UK, turnaround times are officially four to five weeks, but the UK's passport service published a guidance that currently states all applicants should allow ten weeks for processing all kind of applications. The US wait is eight to 11 weeks. In Australia there is a wait of six weeks. In Canada the wait is four weeks.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Can the Minister give me the percentages?

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Some 45% of our passport renewals for adults are done within 48 hours. There is a lot that is good about our passport system, despite the fact that we are producing about double the number of passports each month this year compared to what we were producing up until three or four years ago. A total of 4,000 to 5,000 passports a day are going out to people. There are individual cases where there are problems or difficulties with paperwork and we have glitches in the system, which happened this week and impacted on the phone lines. We are addressing that. It is not a perfect system, but there will be 900 people in passport offices in three different locations this summer to deal with volumes of passports that we have never seen before. The vast majority of passports will be very smooth in terms of delivery.