Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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672. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the steps being taken to address any anticipated surge in the number of passport applications received by the Passport Office; his plans to ensure speedy turnaround times during the traditionally busy summer period; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23178/15]

Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Almost 50% of passport applications are received in the months April to July. We are almost two thirds of the way through this extreme spike in passport applications and average turnaround times for passport express have remained at 10 or 11 days. Additionally at this time of year approximately 250 customers are seen daily by appointment at our public counters in Dublin and Cork and receive a turnaround service of between one and 10 days as appropriate. This high level of service delivery has been achieved in no small part due to the dedication of the staff in our passport offices in Dublin, Balbriggan and Cork. In line with the wider public service reform programme, the passport service actively pursues opportunities to improve customer service with reduced staff numbers through an effective combination of internal and external service delivery initiatives. Additionally, to cope with the seasonal demand the passport service recruited 160 additional temporary staff, most taken from the live register. I am aware that problems have arisen for certain callers seeking to reach us by phone. I regret these difficulties and we are currently exploring ways in which this can be resolved while maintaining overall service levels and application processing times. I would advise applicants that our online tracker service which is updated a number of times a day is the best way of getting the most up to date progress report on an application. The passport service provides advice and answers queries via social media to over 3000 twitter followers. Additionally the Department’s website is an easy way of getting answers to the most frequently asked passport queries.