Barry Ward (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. I agree with what he said in acknowledging the excellence of the Passport Office. I would never doubt that and it does exceptional work. I also acknowledge the fact the number of applications under the scheme has increased greatly, as the Minister of State said, from about 5,000 to about 35,000 per annum, a massive increase. It is not enough to say, however, that the processing time after Covid was up to two years. We are no longer in that situation. There may be a backlog, but the application to which I refer is taking up to two years and there must be a qualitative difference between an application from a child born in Malaysia, a child born in Spain and a child born in the UK. They must all be slightly different, and it must be easier when dealing with a European Union country, such as Spain, to be able to establish more quickly the facts involved. I do not accept that nine months is a reasonable timeline, even if that is now the expected timeline. It must be faster than that. The time has come to take the resources and the attitude we took to the passport backlog and apply it to foreign birth registration. It needs to be sped up.