Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

At the outset, I congratulate Senators Ó Donnghaile and Boylan for bringing forward this important matter. It is an important discussion that should be held in the Seanad. Well done to them on that. We will not be opposing the motion, as was anticipated correctly. We have no difficulty with this at all, in principle or in practice.

The first thing I raise is that I assume this office would be available to people in Ulster generally, and not just in the Six Counties that constitute Northern Ireland? It would be important for people in Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal and indeed Louth, to be able to access the office and use it. I presume the Minister of State will indicate his support for that to ensure we vote for or not oppose the motion. It is important that we do that. I have said privately to Senator Ó Donnghaile in the past that we should have much more interaction. We should contrive to make reasons to bring people north and south in this country. That is very important and this could be one way.

I agree with Senator Chambers regarding Mayo. Why not put a passport office into the west of Ireland? I presume that in no way thwarts the other. I wish to bring a perspective on how successful the passport situation has been. We have had the difficulties but great strides have been made and it is important to draw attention to this. Up to mid-July of this year, 720,000 passports have been issued. That is in contrast to 630,000 in 2021. The numbers are 20% up on a peak year in 2019. There has been a 40% increase in the online time, certainly for renewals anyway. Currently, 6,000 passports a day are being issued. There is a ten-day delay online for renewal and that is not bad. Since June, 570 new staff have been recruited into the Passport Office. These are good things. That it is not to suggest there was not a problem but the Government is addressing the problem with vigour and with a huge amount of success. It is wonderful on a number of levels that we had the inundation of applications for passports. It is great to see people from Northern Ireland and the UK seeking Irish passports. That is just wonderful and something to be very proud of as a country. We have come a lot way to have reached that point and that is good. It is wonderful to see those requests and demand levels.

It is also wonderful to see the mobility of our people now and the degree to which people are fit to travel. Travel is so much part of the reality of people's lives. Senator Craughwell and I occasionally reminisce about life when we were younger and talk about how it might not have been as ideal as we like to romanticise it retrospectively. We have had those discussions in the House a few times. Looking back to my childhood, air fare was prohibitive for most people. It was a very rare thing for people to go on holidays and for long-term, even successful emigrants, to get home; particularly if they were in America or beyond the UK. It is great progress and is great to see mobility among people travelling and people living in a wider world, landscape and experience. That is good. It is good to see the demand for passports and that we are addressing that demand, as we should.

To return to the core of the motion, neither I nor my party have any problem with the motion. There will be at least one further speaker who will indicate similarly. We will be supporting the motion. It is a good motion. It should be done, by the way, and not just be a motion of the Seanad. I would like to hear the Minister of State give a commitment to do something about it because it is a worthy measure. I acknowledge there are issues around viability as a certain volume is required to be viable but the cloth could be cut according to the measure and have a small office. Some elaborate monstrosity of an office would not be needed if you are not going to have the kind of volume that would justify that. That kind of office might only point up the lack of activity in it so you would be better with a small physical office that was busy than a large building that was not.

It is a good motion and a good discussion. The Seanad is addressing a real issue which could be good if it also caused a greater movement. Something I personally will come back to and have a big thing about is mechanisms to bring people up North. We should do it through the sports capital grant, through a number of mechanisms and ways.Movement north is very important for southern people and there is not enough of it. We tend to be very Dublin-centric, even in Ulster, and that is not how it should be. The time is nicely up. I have managed to fill the time.