Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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189. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade his views on correspondence (details supplied); and if additional resources will be allocated to this service. [15837/18]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I am advised by the Passport Service that the correspondence to which the Deputy refers concerns a passport renewal application that was processed in March of this year. I am advised, that this correspondence was answered by my Department on 5^thApril 2018. I understand that the essence of this correspondence concerned a data breach that was promptly brought to the Passport Service’s attention and was immediately reported in line with their procedures for safeguarding customer data. My Department takes our responsibilities under Data Protection law very seriously and accordingly, the matter was immediately escalated and brought to the attention of the appropriate staff members. The staff members acted promptly and in line with protocol for such cases to protect personal details from risk of compromise.The correspondence to which the Deputy refers also highlighted the difficulties that the applicant experienced in obtaining updates on the progress of their application through the Passport Service’s customer care phone and email services. At the time that the application in question was being processed, the Passport Service was experiencing an exceptionally high workload owing to high application volumes and disruption caused by adverse weather conditions and the subsequent closure of the Dublin and Cork passport offices for 2 days. Consequently, turnaround times for some categories of application were higher than target turnaround times and delays were experienced in response times for queries submitted to customer care.

I would like to take this opportunity to highlight that applicants can track the status of existing applications at any time through the Passport Service’s online tracker which can be found on the department’s website:

The Passport Service also operates a web-chat facility where applicants and passport holders can contact the customer care team from 9am to 4pm Monday to Friday. A link to this service can be found on the passport tracker web-page.

Measures taken by the Passport Service to enhance processing capacity include the recruitment of additional staff and the use of targeted overtime. The number of Full Time Equivalent staff permanently employed by my Department and assigned to the Passport Service stood at 322 at the beginning of the year. This compares to 310 Full Time Equivalent staff assigned to the Passport Service at the same point last year. In addition, over 20 additional permanent staff have been assigned to the Passport Service in 2018.

In order to respond to seasonal demands and an anticipated increase in applications, the Passport Service received sanction this year for 220 Temporary Clerical Officers to be appointed to the Passport Offices in Dublin and Cork. These officers are now full trained and assigned to duties within the two Passport Offices. Targeted overtime was also sanctioned for both temporary and permanent staff to help deal with high application volumes.

The continuous implementation of service improvements has also been central to my Department’s response to increasing application volumes. The Passport Reform Programme is delivering major upgrades to the passport service technology platforms and business processes as well as significant customer service improvements. The award-winning online passport application service, which was launched last year, will continue to make a major contribution to the effective management of high application volumes by allowing existing resources to be more effectively deployed within the Passport Service. At present, the online service is limited to adult renewals and passport card applications. It is planned to further expand the online passport application service by the end of 2018.