Paddy Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I support the call made by Senator McDowell and others for a debate on cybersecurity and energy security. The security breaches of the last few days are not the first such breaches. A number of local authorities have been hacked in the past year and a half. I fully support the call for a debate.

The Passport Office provides a great service. Its online service is very efficient and has helped so many people. There have been problems with the Passport Office over the last week. There is a major build-up of passport applications. Children's passport applications continue to be more complicated as consent forms and first-time adult witness forms are not accepted by the system. This is causing a huge backlog. The system is not accepting submissions for photographs, which will further add to the backlog. I had an email from a worried person this morning who has made a passport application. While he does not have to travel at the moment, he may be required to travel at any time and needs a passport. When he tries to upload his photographs to the website, an error message appears on the system. That feature is obviously not working.

As of 11 a.m. today, the web chat and telephone lines are unavailable. There are, therefore, some issues with the Passport Office which will feed in to the serious backlogs. While staff in the office are doing a magnificent job, the Minister needs to take action. As Senators have pointed out previously, we have a big backlog and the summer is coming, so something will need to be done.