Niall Ó Donnghaile (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for the answer. I begin by acknowledging the dedication and diligence of staff in the Passport Service and thanking them. It has undoubtedly been a difficult and trying number of years for them. There are a couple of encouraging points in the Minister of State's answer. I welcome that a dedicated team has been set up and deployed to focus solely on first-time applications from the North. It is necessary because there is a difficult, substantial backlog which needs to be cleared. While I appreciate this is not the Minister of State's brief, he might relay this point to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Fine Gael colleagues tabled a motion in the Seanad on the Passport Service and the difficulties facing it. I said to the Minister that the dedicated Oireachtas hub and helpline should be made available to MLAs and MPs in the North who deal with the same number of applications as us. Having spoken to some of my MP colleagues last week, I understand that they still do not have access to that hub. It would be a significant help to them in their day-to-day constituency work. The Minister of State knows how problematic it can be. A dedicated resource would be welcome.

There is a different range of possible witnesses in the North, compared with members of the Garda as witnesses in the South. I am regularly called by the Passport Service to verify that I have witnessed an application, which is fine. I agree that we need to protect the robustness and security of passports. Nevertheless, if someone submitting an application from Derry instead of Donegal causes a disparity and delay because of the nature of the witnesses, perhaps we need to look at how we can streamline and improve that service. The Minister of State might take those points on board and relay them to his colleagues in Cabinet.