John Cummins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his attendance, which shows that he is taking this matter seriously. I acknowledge the commitment in his statement to increasing staff at the Passport Office to cater for the expected increase in passport applications to some 1.75 million this year. That is a staggering figure when one considers the highest number ever dealt with previously was around 1 million. There is a challenge there, undoubtedly, but the Government is responding to it by increasing staffing levels in the Passport Office considerably.

This is a very welcome debate, as others have said. It has drawn attention to this matter and has received quite a bit of media attention today. It has encouraged people to check their passports and to make their applications online in a timely fashion. That is a useful exercise in and of itself.

It is important to say that many thousands of passport applications are dealt with in very timely and diligent fashion by the Passport Office every day but we do not hear about those cases. They are not the cases that come to our constituency offices. It is the difficult ones we hear about. That said, I put up a social media post on this issue earlier today and was heartened to see many people posting complimentary comments about the quick turnaround times they experienced recently. Unfortunately of course, as with everything, there were some bad experiences too, including one case where a passport was delivered to the wrong address and was only located a week later. It also had the wrong date of birth on it, which is obviously a very serious issue. I do not expect the Minister to comment on an individual case but I will talk to him about it later. I would emphasise again that many people had very positive experiences and it is important to put that on the record.

I want to raise an issue I have raised with the Minister previously, both inside and outside the House. I refer to first-time applications for children where one or both parents are not originally from Ireland. While many people are looking forward to an overseas holiday for the first time with their child, there are many others who are looking forward both to being reunited with family and to grandparents meeting their grandchildren for the very first time. Unfortunately, there is a particular issue in those cases. While I understand there must be additional checks vis-à-visconsent and there is a need to verify the passports of the parent or parents, these applications are taking an inordinate amount of time to be processed. I have examples of cases from last August and September that are still not resolved, including one where a child's Indian grandparent abroad is very sick in hospital. There are issues with those passport applications that we must get to grips with, but I appreciate the staff in the Passport Office are doing their utmost to work through the backlog.

As other Members have said, early validation is key. Documents only being checked and verified after seven or eight weeks and applications then going back to the end of the queue has caused a lot of frustration. That problem is now being addressed, which I welcome. I also want to reference the reminder. The Fine Gael group has suggested that an early notification be provided, as is the case with motor taxation. Senator Kyne referred to the difficulties that may arise where a reminder is issued to somebody who is deceased. However, the reminder system does work for motor tax renewal and I know that without the reminder email I get, I would forget. A reminder would be a useful addition.

I compliment the Minister, his team of officials and the team at the Passport Office on the diligent work they do every day to respond to so many requests. Invariably there are difficult cases which the Minister's office and the Passport Office try their utmost to resolve and we very much appreciate that, as do all of our constituents.