Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the Chamber and will start by acknowledging the good work he has done, especially in recent weeks, on behalf of this State. He has worked hard on behalf of this State since entering political life, but he has done a huge service to our country recently and it is important to put that on the record. I also acknowledge the work of the staff in the Passport Office in extremely difficult circumstances. They are the subject almost daily of negative media commentary in newspapers and on the radio.It is important to put on record that this work could not be done off-site. The vast majority of people probably would not know that. It had to be done within the confines of the building to make sure it was within a secure network because of GDPR issues and because it related to people's private business. I do not think a lot of the general public know that so it is important to get that out there. I welcome the Oireachtas line that was set up. I thank the people who work on that line and I thank the Minister's office for the help I received in sorting out numerous difficult cases. I got a WhatsApp message from Dublin Airport at 8 a.m. on Friday 24 December. A lad from Belfast sent me a picture with a pint, a boarding pass and his passport. He was heading off to New York for Christmas and it did not look like he could go two or three days earlier. There are lots of good results and good stories.

A couple of points have been made during the debate. The issue of passports for children being issued and the supporting passport of the parent not coming with them must be looked at. That passport should go with the child's passport when it is being posted out.

The reminder, by text message or whatever, is an excellent proposal. The reality is, and I am guilty of this myself, that it is only when people go to get their passport when booking something that they realise it is out of date. If we got a reminder it would make us deal with it. Only yesterday evening my wife said to me that we have to get the kids' passports in place, because of the discussion we are having today. We have no travel planned for the foreseeable future but we are going to get it done so we have it done.

As the Minister knows, I am a postmaster by profession. For many years, the passport express service provided an excellent service to the Passport Office and the general public. However, we have now been sidelined by the online service, which has been promoted. There are probably very few passport applications going through the post office system now. When people come in with a passport application I ask them when they need it for, and I have told some people not to do it through that service but to go online to make sure they have it back in time. There is still a significant role for the post office with regard to passports, such as in applications for first-time passports and so on. We could look at doing online applications for customers within the post office, where we would enter the details onto the system and scan whatever documentation that is needed straight to the Passport Office. That is already in place with the likes of Western Union. Many of the issues with the backlog within the Passport Office relate to documentation being sent in but if that documentation were physically checked by a person, be they a postmaster or a clerk, who knows what documentation is needed, the chances of there being a mistake in that documentation would be significantly reduced. That would be a way of clearing the backlog and helping people who are not in a position to make an application online.

I was chatting to a garda the other day who told me about the significant number of people now going into his Garda station looking to get documentation signed. With a minor passport application, I as a postmaster can sign, verify and witness the parent's signature for a child's passport, yet I cannot verify the actual passport application for the same signature on the other page. It would make sense if postmasters could verify all of that and would also reduce the workload for the local Garda stations. Much of their work involves verifying those applications whereas we would be in a position to do so as well.

Roughly 4,000 to 5,000 passports are issued each day. Passports issued on a Friday evening are in the postal system for the weekend and on a bank holiday weekend they could be in the postal system for three days. There have been situations where people were flying on a Sunday but their passport was issued on a Friday. Luckily, a staff member within An Post was able to get it to them so they could fly. I ask that something be put in place for these situations, such as a delivery on a Saturday morning to sub-offices etc. Something should be put in place with An Post that would allow those passports to be delivered on a Saturday, or people could get a notification that they could collect it in their local office. That would alleviate a lot of problems for people, particularly with regard to passports issued on a Friday evening.

I again thank the Minister and the staff of the Passport Office for the work they have done in difficult times.