Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for the opportunity to update the House on the current operational status of the Passport Service, which has significantly scaled up operations since 4 May 2021. As an essential service, attendance levels are now increasing and I am sure the Seanad will support me in commending the staff of the Passport Service on the emergency services they operated throughout the pandemic and for their commitment to returning to the Passport Office issuing sites as restrictions have eased.

At the end of April, there were approximately 89,000 online passport applications in the system. Taking into account measures to ensure a safe workplace, I am confident these applications can be processed in six to eight weeks. We are working to process all applications and to return to more reliable turnaround times for our customers by the end of June.

Since we began to increase service levels on 4 May 2021, the Passport Service has issued more than 12,200 passports. There are currently approximately 4,000 more at the final stages of processing. The Passport Service's goal is to process all passport applications on hand by the end of June 2021 and to ensure we would have the capacity for high levels of anticipated demand for passport applications were current travel restrictions to ease.

The Senator correctly notes the Passport Service has seen an annual increase in the number of passports applied for, peaking in 2019 when approximately 935,000 passports were issued. Our investment in the passport reform programme has focused on ensuring the system is robust enough to support that continuously growing global demand for passports. It is not intended to open a dedicated passport office in Northern Ireland as we are satisfied we currently have the capacity to meet that demand. I and my colleagues in Government very much look forward to a return to normal levels of service and to there being shorter turnaround times for our citizens applying from Northern Ireland.

I underline that no matter where in the world our citizens are living and applying from, all applications receive the same priority. We achieve this by processing based on date of receipt and type of application. For example, the passport online system operates from a central pool of applications which can be processed by staff in any of our three locations.This allows us to react quickly to daily demand, by distributing the work to where we have capacity and also to match the skill set of our resources to the work that needs to be done. This has dramatically improved the processing times for adult renewals, where the information is the same as the customer's previous passport. During the highest level of restrictions, Passport Office staff processed approximately 40,000 of these applications. Where a customer is required to submit supporting documentation, such as when changing his or her name, applying on behalf of a child or as a first-time applicant, the supporting documents are sent to a dedicated location where highly skilled staff verify the documents and prepare them for processing for all three offices.

I know that for some customers the use of online services is challenging, but it is important to highlight that the online service is extremely easy to use. Passport Online has won awards for its user-friendly process, including a National Adult Literacy Agency, NALA, award for the use of plain English. Many customers find that it is very quick, taking only ten minutes to complete, and I would encourage everyone to try it. Where a customer does not wish to use the passport online system, they will be able to use the paper based Passport Express, or Northern Ireland Passport Express, system later in the year, but the turnaround times for this service will continue to be much longer than Passport Online because of the differences in the efficiencies in processing applications. It is important to point out that in the event that an applicant has urgent or emergency reasons for requiring a passport, he or she should contact the Passport Office, customer service hub by webchat to make it aware of the situation.