Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Yes. In addition to the staff costs that might arise, which are already subsumed into the service, very significant capital investment of more than €1.5 million would be required for the machine required to print the passports. A passport express service is available in Northern Ireland through more than 60 post offices dotted throughout the province. There is also an online service. A resident of Belmullet is much farther away from the Dublin Passport Office than a resident of Belfast.

That current service works exceptionally well, not just for citizens residing on the island of Ireland but for citizens across the world too. In providing that service, we need to ensure we have sufficient staff capacity to process all the applications that are arising. We expect further increases in passport applications in future. We are recruiting staff and an excellent ongoing recruitment process is in place. The resources and capacity of the Passport Office are such now that we are confident that it will be capable of catering for additional demand in the future.