Niall Ó Donnghaile (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire agus gabhaim mo bhuíochas le lucht Fhine Gael as an rún seo a leagan os ár gcomhair anocht.

I welcome the Minister to the debate. As Senator Boyhan has already noted, the Minister has had a huge volume of parliamentary questions on this matter. He has also responded to quite a number of Commencement matters in the Seanad on it as well since I became a Member in 2016. There is universal recognition across the Chamber that this is an issue that needs to be sorted because, as I stated last week on the Order of Business - I say this respectfully, fully conscious of our role as Members of this House - we are not the Passport Office and the difficulty for us is that due to the issues that have been readily identified by previous speakers and the motion we are debating tonight, in effect, we are becoming the Passport Office. I agree with the sentiment that has been expressed in terms of commending the staff who work in the Passport Office, who do first-class diligent work, not least in the context of the past two years and the added burden and stress that was on them. I echo the words of thanks to them for everything they do.

Many of the points I wish to raise have already been covered by colleagues. While I appreciate that there is an increasing demand for passports, in this instance Irish passports, there are a number of points set out in the motion with which I hope the Minister will be agreeable. In working with him and his officials, I hope we can contribute to trying to resolve the outstanding issues.

I do not mind lobbying on behalf of people when it comes to a problem with their passport application, no matter what it is - whether it is a delay, a technical issue, the wrong box ticked or whatever else. Very often, the great difficulty for me is to get someone to engage with me. The problem is that while I accept and agree to an extent, that it does not really matter where the printing facilities are, there needs to be service provision that is accessible to the public, no matter where they are. An element of the work can happen and is very effective online, but there also needs to be an element of infrastructure and service delivery that is physically present across the entirety of the country. I agree with Senator Malcolm Byrne. I know many people who are desperately sending messages or calling me on the phone to say they will go to Dublin or Cork. They say they will wait there for however long it takes as long as they know they will get it. Increasingly, if it is an emergency situation, if there is short notice, if you live in Strabane, Enniskillen or Ballycastle and you have work, childcare commitments or other caring commitments, then you cannot always necessarily just jump in the car and go to Dublin or Cork. There is a clear, logical argument anyway, added to by the huge volume of increased demand that, at the very least, no matter where the printing facilities are, there would be human beings, representative staff from the Passport Office, to engage with the public and with us.

When the Passport Office is good, it is absolutely first class. It is brilliant. I have seen its staff assisting many people who have been under real pressure - they might have been a bit lacklustre and like Senator Ahearn said, perhaps forgot, and they are under time constraints. We have all dealt with people who have been dealing with tragic and unfortunate circumstances and have needed to obtain a passport quickly and the staff have been able to do that. I recently renewed my passport online and got it in a couple of days. If it was just me I was dealing with I would be content, but because we are dealing with so many people, we know these problems exist and that is why we are making the case to the Minister tonight.

Jim, in my office, has found the existing hub for Oireachtas Members helpful in terms of the volume of issues that we deal with. I urge the Minister to make the hub and facility available to our MLA and MP colleagues in the North, because they deal with just as many passport applications and problem as we do. There should be a dedicated hub for all elected representatives across the country.

In terms of my earlier point, I heard the Minister and others tell us that the Passport Express office is very good and when I make the case, as I regularly do, for a new facility in the North, it is said that the post office service is sufficiently good. That is probably fair enough to say if this process was just that first step alone, because very often that is grand. You go into the post office and give in your passport application form, and it is sent away in the post and that process is accessible and good.The problems arise when that goes into the system. There is no point in one going back into the post office and saying one has a problem with a passport application. The staff will look at you and ask what that has to do with them. The problem is there is a deficit of infrastructure and service provision for people to go in and engage with a human being. That is why it makes sense that we would do what is laid out on this motion, particularly on the education, marketing and PR campaign, which should also be all-island. There is a clear case for the west of Ireland and the North of Ireland needing a facility where the public can go in and engage, not least in the context of the huge increase in the volume of applications.