Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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139. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the breakdown of the allocation in 2019 for the passport reform programme; the phases that will be delivered in 2019; the date in 2019 each will be delivered; if it will be impacted by the cost overrun with the national children's hospital; if he or his officials have been consulted by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform in this regard; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6862/19]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Passport Reform Programme (2016 - 2021) is delivering major upgrades to the passport service technology platforms and business processes as well as making significant customer service improvements to the Passport Service.

The Programme consists of over 30 individual projects and the award winning online passport renewal service has been the most significant project launched under the Programme to date.

In March 2017, Phase 1 of the online renewal service was launched which facilitates the online renewal of straightforward adult passports. In November 2018, Phase 2 of the project extended the service to the renewal of children's passports, introduced a passport card for children and expanded the cohort of adults eligible to renew online.

To allow for further reform and development of the Passport Service €6.6 m will be made available to the reform programme in 2019 which is focused mainly on 5 major projects.

1. Mailing Machines – to be completed this year at a cost of €1 million

2. Business Process Automation – to be completed this year at a cost of €150,000

3. Passport Integrated Processing System – due to start in Q4 this year at a cost of €1.5 million

4. Improvement to customer service systems – to be completed this year at a cost of €2 million

5. Upgrading document management system – due to start Q2 this year at a cost of €750,000

I can confirm that the funding available to the programme has not been impacted by any other funding allocation.