Marie Sherlock (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Byrne, for coming to the House. I warmly welcome the motion and thank An Seanadóir Ó Donnghaile and his Sinn Féin colleagues for bringing it forward. We in the Labour Party very much support it.

As has been said a number of times, we have all seen the massive surge on the island of Ireland for Irish passports over the last 18 months in particular and the frustrations that were associated with all that. It is also important to acknowledge that we saw a significant response from Government on the resourcing of the passport service. On the waiting times, I have detected a reduction in those frustrations out there. I am also conscious the concept of a physical passport office is something fewer and fewer people are having to engage with any more. That is because of the excellent online ordering service and the post office service that is available. Due to those, many of us never have to darken the door of the Passport Office. However, to rely on that as an argument to dismiss the need for an office in Belfast would be a mistake and in some ways misses the point. It misses the point on both a political level and a practical one. It is political because people in the North have an entitlement to identify as Irish citizens and therefore an entitlement to an Irish passport. That right is unique outside this jurisdiction and happens nowhere else in the world. We must treat that right to citizenship with the dignity and respect it deserves. On a practical level, few of us need to engage with the physical passport service any more but when we need it, by God do people need it, especially when they need the urgent appointment service. I have dealt with people, especially in Donegal, over the last number of months who end up having to travel the long distance to Dublin when it would be two hours to Belfast.For people in the North, and in the north west, there is a real and practical importance to having a passport service in the North. It is also important to pay tribute to the three Passport Office locations we have in the South. While it can often seem like there is a two or three-day delay in the online urgent appointments service, or certainly this was the case up to the middle of the summer anyway regarding any of the cases I was dealing with, my advice to people was always to get into the car and turn up at the nearest office at 9 a.m. People were then seen that day.

If people are living many hours' drive from an office, however, will they take the risk of turning up, not knowing if they are going to be seen that day, unless they are given direct advice to do so? In fairness, and this was not stated publicly, people who turned up at the offices were being seen within a few hours of arriving. Therefore, there is a real and practical importance associated with having a physical office in a location to provide passport services in an area across the north west and the North where well over 1 million Irish citizens live. I commend this motion. It is important politically and practically that we see progress on this issue. It is also important to acknowledge that there has been cross-party support for this development for some time, so we do need to see some progress now being made by the Government in this regard.