Gerard Craughwell (Independent)
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I welcome the Minister of State. This is the first time I have had the opportunity to address him since his elevation, so I would like to congratulate him in that regard. He was a very decent colleague when I first came to this House. I wish him well as he goes forward in this ministerial role.

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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I gave the Senator a stroke on the ballot paper in his first election.

Gerard Craughwell (Independent)
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The Department paused the processing of foreign birth registration applications last year when level 5 restrictions under the national framework for living with Covid-19 were in place. The Minister indicated last year that applications were being held securely and would be processed when normal services resumed at level 3 of the framework. It is now 2021. Restaurants, pubs and restaurants are open but foreign birth registrations remain paused and new and existing applicants have no indication when theirs will be processed. At a conservative estimate, the current backlog of applications stands at 32,000. Even before the pandemic, the waiting period for a foreign birth registration was up to two years. The Covid-19 pandemic resulted in two periods in 2020 when processing of foreign birth registration was paused in order to assist other essential work, such as providing consular assistance to Irish citizens overseas. This resulted in the processing of foreign birth registration applications being suspended for 26 weeks. Given the importance of foreign birth registration to people's lives, surely other staff could or should have been deployed in this role and the processing of applications should have continued, especially when the Department was aware of the high volume of applications due to Brexit. I fully understand that the foreign birth registration process is complex and complicated, involving documents over several generations and multiple jurisdictions but applicants invest considerable time in gathering, authenticating and submitting legal documents and then are left in legal limbo due to the service being suspended.

The Minister stated in the Dáil earlier this year that additional resources would be introduced in order to facilitate the processing of applications. How many new staff are working in the foreign birth registration office and what progress has been made in expediting the significant backlog?Many citizens have contacted my office about foreign birth registrations. Some need to get Irish passports to travel throughout Europe to work and visit sick family members. Others cannot leave the country with their newborn children as their own situation has not been legalised. I know of retirees whose parents and grandparents were Irish and now wish to spend the remainder of their lives in their home country - people for whom time is of the essence. I am aware of children stuck in war-torn countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria who are prevented from travelling to Ireland until the applications of foreign birth registration are processed and they can apply for an Irish passport.

The closure of the service has seriously impacted family reunification and causes trauma to many families. This is not just a matter of inconvenience, it is a matter of citizens' rights and they are being denied access to the service to which they are legally entitled. It is only a matter of time before a legal challenge is mounted. The year 2021 is drawing to a close and the service is still paused. I hope the Minister of State will have some good news for the thousands of people whose lives are regrettably paused as a consequence. I look forward to his reply.

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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Gabhaim mo bhuíochas leis an Seanadóir Ó Creachmhaoil. The Minister for Foreign Affairs is in Israel today and has asked me to speak on his behalf. The Department of Foreign Affairs is responsible for citizenship by descent through the foreign birth register under the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 2004. As the Senator will be aware, people may apply for Irish citizenship through foreign birth registration if one of their grandparents was born in Ireland or one of their parents was an Irish citizen at the time of their birth, even if the parent was not born in Ireland. Once a person is entered on the foreign birth register, he or she is an Irish citizen and as the Senator has said, entitled to apply for an Irish passport. To protect the integrity of this process, foreign birth registrations require careful processing to validate the identity of the applicant and the entitlement to citizenship. The applications undergo rigorous and detailed checking by experienced staff at the passport service.

Demand for foreign birth registration reached unprecedented levels following the Brexit referendum in the UK. Prior to that, we had approximately 5,000 to 6,000 applications for foreign birth registrations every year. After the referendum, we had a peak in 2019, of 32,000 online applications received. Prior to the pandemic, the processing time stood at 18 months, due to the huge increase post-Brexit. Of course, that peak coincided with Covid-19. Operations at the Passport Office were severely disrupted. During this period, it was necessary to pause the foreign birth registration process to focus on urgent passport services.

When passport services were scaled up in May 2021 to more normal operational levels, foreign birth registration staff were redeployed to help with the delivery of essential passport services and have continued to do so in light of continuing strong demand for passport services. They are not the only people in the Department redeployed to what we might call normal passport services. A huge number of staff have been redeployed from various quarters of the Department to deal with that.

The foreign birth registration service continues to consider urgent requests to expedite applications on a case-by-case basis, such as expectant parents or stateless persons. A number of them are processed in Afghanistan, but if there are any particular cases, the Senator can let me know. Some 5,000 emergency cases have been processed in 2021. Expectant parents and other emergency applicants should make contact with the passport service customer service hub to advise of the circumstances.

The passport service is actively preparing to resume processing foreign birth registration applications as soon as possible. I can assure the Cathaoirleach, the Department is fully committed to allocating the necessary resources to this service to help with the high volume of applications with a focus on reducing that backlog the Senator has rightly described. In the medium term, changes to the foreign birth registration process to increase efficiencies and improve the customer experience will be delivered under the next phase of the Department's ongoing passport reform and under which huge work is ongoing to generally reform the process and make it much more efficient.

This is not directly related to what the Senator spoke about, but online renewal of passports is taking place quickly.There is certainly a major backlog in paper applications so I encourage people to apply online for passports insofar as they can. I outlined earlier the situation regarding foreign birth registration.

Gerard Craughwell (Independent)
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I thank the Minister of State. I appreciate he is here representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs. He might bring my message back to the Department. Some of the stories arriving on my desk are about families being split; one parent who has a passport can travel back to Ireland but because his or her child was born overseas the child cannot travel. There are also the retirees I mentioned who want to live here, and it is financially viable for them to do so, in addition to those in various other family circumstances. The Minister of State is in the game of politics a long time and he knows none of these families finds this easy. It is very difficult. I ask that the Minister do something to get the foreign birth registration office up and running again. There are about 32,000 applications outstanding, which is a large number, although the processing system is more complex than the ordinary one. I again thank the Minister of State for his time and I ask him to bring that message back.

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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I will certainly discuss this matter with the Minister and officials in the Department. It is one that comes across my desk from time to time. The passport service is working very closely with the human resources division in the Department of Foreign Affairs, and the Public Appointments Service, on an ongoing basis to get more staff in. That is the bottom line for the entire system of passport applications and especially foreign birth registrations. There is major forecasted demand for foreign birth registrations and passports in general. The Government is making large investments in the future of the Passport Office. Over the next couple of years, the Department will replace the technology underpinning the service, which will deliver efficiencies not just to passport services but to foreign birth registration. An additional €10 million from the budget is being invested to help deal with passports.

What will help the situation is for people to apply early for passports, apply online as best they can and, if they can avoid putting in paper applications, to do so as early as possible. There will be a large number of passport applications between now and next summer because we know the number of passports that have now expired. It will help with the process the Senator talked about, and everything in the Passport Office, if everybody could get their applications in early and do so online insofar as they can. We are looking to recruit much more staff to deal with all these issues.