Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. My colleague, Senator Ó Donnghaile, has outlined clearly why a Passport Office branch in the North makes sense. In 2020 the number of Irish passports being issued in the North surpassed British passports for the first time. A total of 48,555 citizens applied for a British passport, which was 356 fewer than those who opted for an Irish passport in the same year. Since then, the gap has become even more pronounced, with the number of applications for Irish passports more than double the number for British passports in January and February of this year. In the context of those figures, if the British Government can run a passport office to service a smaller number of passport applications, then surely our Government should be looking again at the proposal for an Irish passport office in the North. We have a branch of the Passport Office in London, I believe, in recognition of the large number of passport applications that come from there.

Last night there was a debate in Newry, Mourne and Down District Council about the need for an Irish passport office. The motion tabled enjoyed cross-party support with a majority of 27 in the Chamber from Sinn Féin, the SDLP, and Alliance voting in favour, while Derry City and Strabane District Council has already passed a motion calling for the same. Again, as Senator Ó Donnghaile has pointed out, our Private Members' motion has been co-signed by Members from across this House. There is huge cross-party support for the idea of a passport office in the North and now we just need to make it happen.

Senator Ó Donnghaile has long campaigned on this issue and his petition has over 30,000 signatures. Apart from the point about the need for a Passport Office branch, given the level of demand, there is also the issue of practicality. We all know that applying for a passport is great when one can go online or into the post office. There have been reports of people receiving their passport the day after their application was submitted. However, when the process goes wrong it is a very different story and one needs to be able to attend at an office to get things sorted. Currently people from the North, as well as from Donegal or Sligo, have to travel to Cork or Dublin to get issues resolved.

I am not the only one whose soundtrack to this summer was the waiting music of the Passport Office. A lot of us in this Chamber had that tune in our heads and probably still have nightmares about it. That said, when we got through to somebody, the service was excellent. There were many heartbreaking stories but the vast majority of the cases I dealt with involved people from the North who were in a panic trying to get their passports. As has already been pointed out, there are complications when one is dealing with two different postal services. Another Passport Office branch would add extra capacity and would allow people to get reassurances when applications go wrong. As I said, the staff at the Passport Office were great, given the pressure they were under but when I was talking to people on the phone who were very anxious about whether they would get their passport on time for a wedding, or in some cases for a funeral, they often spoke about the different experience when applying for a British passport, which would take three weeks. They knew they would get it in three weeks.People who identify for Irish citizenship deserve a similar treatment. Not only would having an office reduce the pressure on the two offices we have but it would also enable people to have that in-person contact when things go wrong with their application. I hope the Minister of State will respond favourably and support this motion and that others across the House will do likewise.