Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I absolutely agree with the Senator's final point. The Passport Office has shown it is capable of resolving a backlog and delivering a wonderful digitised service. I am responsible for the digitisation of Government public services and that is one of the jewels in the crown. A constituent has reported to me that they went to renew a passport at lunchtime and it arrived in the post the next morning. That level of service is what people expect to see. Having to wait two years to prove that your grandmother is Irish and that you are related to her seems like a very long time. Clearly, the office has reduced the times. The passport service is saying there are cases where the documentation is incomplete and where it has to request additional documentation from the person, which can add time. It claims it should currently take between eight and nine months.

The passport service also tells me the Public Appointments Service is recruiting additional staff to meet current and forecast demands for foreign birth registration. The recruiting of additional staff is one part, and the automation and digitisation of the service is the next part. It has experienced a sevenfold increase. Clearly, whatever method it had previously for working with 5,000 applications a year does not work for 35,000. Nobody should have to wait two years to register the fact their grandparent is Irish and that they are related to him or her. That seems to be an extremely long period and it causes all manner of problems for people when they are trying to enter either employment or university and prove their citizenship. I know that the Department of Foreign Affairs will fix this, and I will mention it to the Tánaiste, Deputy Micheál Martin, when I next see him.