Robbie Gallagher (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I also acknowledge and ask the Minister to pass on my appreciation for the hard work of staff in the Passport Office. There are two ways of looking at this - glass half full or glass half empty. The Minister outlined in great detail the positives, of which there are many, particularly online renewal. The turnaround time inside 48 hours is hugely impressive. This compares favourably with any other country.

Unfortunately, where we seem to be falling down a bit is in the area of first-time applications. I note that in his contribution the Minister used the term "frustrated public". Many of us are dealing first-hand with many very frustrated individuals, particularly children going on school trips. I have dealt with a few who did not get as far as the airport because of this. What I am hearing is that they are contacting the Passport Office but nobody is answering the phone. That is one problem. I appreciate that staff are under serious pressure. It is difficult to get a response through the web chat. While I appreciate fully why we are in this situation and that there is such a backlog because of Covid, it is clearly something that needs to be looked at. I know the Minister is trying to address that. Hopefully, by the end of March, the number of staff will have doubled to in excess of 900. I hope this alleviates the problem for many frustrated people.

Another issue I continually hear about is the validation process. I spoke to a woman a number of weeks ago who after she applied for a child passport for the first time, it did not arrive on the due date. She rang the office the following day to be told that a document was missing. This was after more than eight weeks. She then submitted the document the following day but four or five days later, it was still not updated on the system. I will use the example of a planning application to a local authority. If someone wants to build a house, he or she sticks up the site notice and lodges the documents and somebody from the local authority validates that application. The decision date is based on that validation date so no matter what happens within that timeframe, if the application is validated, the person will get the answer within seven to eight weeks and that will not change. If a system like that could be incorporated in the Passport Office, at least people would know that if their application is validated, they will get their decision within weeks and if there is a problem, their documentation will be returned and the clock will not start ticking. It would appear to me to be a simple solution that might alleviate a lot of the problems. Perhaps it is not that simple but I ask that it be looked at.

I thank the Minister for providing a line for Oireachtas Members when people cannot get through to the Passport Office for one reason or another. It is vital that Members retain that because at the end of the day, Members of this House or the Lower House are representatives of the people and when people are in difficulty, they contact their local Oireachtas Member and this facility should always be there. I thank the Minister for bringing that in.

Members spoke about the office in Dublin and the office in Cork. The old argument is that if a line is drawn from Dublin to Galway, most services are located south of that line. As someone coming from a northern part of the country, is there any reason we cannot have an outreach office in County Monaghan? Senator Ó Donnghaile spoke about the North. Monaghan is fairly centrally located whether that be from counties Donegal, Tyrone, Armagh or Fermanagh and could save people from having to travel to Dublin or Cork to get an emergency appointment. I would appreciate if the Minister would consider this.

Another issue raised with me is the fact that the tracking system is not accurate. I spoke to somebody who has been told by the system that their passport has been printing for the past four days and has still has not been delivered. Issues like this lead to a frustrated public, to use the Minister's phrase. I appreciate that there are 113,000 passport applications in the system. Perhaps 40% of paper applications are not filled in correctly and hence there is a problem. We have a problem that needs to be sorted because people are getting angrier by the day. I would appreciate it if additional staff could be provided to address that pinch point. If we get over this pinch point and get another month or two, we will be out the other end. I thank the Minister for allowing Oireachtas Members to be able to work on behalf of the people we represent.