Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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36. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the number of complaints his Department received under the customer service charter in 2017, 2018 and to date in 2019; if his attention has been drawn to issues and or problems in having complaints registered; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35645/19]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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From time to time my Department receives comments from members of the public giving feedback on how we could improve our services both at home and at our 88 Missions abroad. We are committed to constantly improving how we conduct our business and to ensuring that our staff across all offices, both in Ireland and our global network of Embassies and Consulates, act in a highly professional manner at all times.

Within my Department, the Passport Service received more than 733,000 and 780,000 passport applications in 2016 and 2017 respectively.  In 2018, in excess of 862,000 applications were received. With this volume of applications, the Passport Service deals with the highest number of customers of any of the Divisions within my Department. 

The Passport Service has a formal complaints procedure in place to allow citizens to give feedback on the quality of the service they receive. The Passport Service aims to investigate and respond to complaints within 20 working days.

The number of complaints received for the years requested is presented below:

*To 31 August