Frank Feighan (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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26. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if all passports will be extended for the duration of 12 months due to Covid-19; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8748/20]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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With the commencement of the COVID-19 public health emergency and the introduction of widespread travel restrictions both nationally and internationally, Irish citizens have ceased nearly all non-essential travel. This has led to a large decrease in the number of passport applications received by the Passport Service, including a decrease in applications received from applicants.

In response to this situation, the Passport Service is operating an essential, emergency service at this time. This has allowed us to both reassign staff to our consular services assisting our citizens abroad and redeploy staff to critical areas including contact tracing for the HSE and COVID-19 payments for Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, all critical services at this time.

The Passport Service continues to process emergency passports for our citizens at home and abroad. Almost 350 passports have issued to our citizens both at home and abroad in response to urgent requests. Our webchat service and a dedicated travel emergency mailbox continue to operate through which we can be contacted in such circumstances. In addition, our phones lines have answered over 16,000 calls from Irish citizens overseas as part of the Department’s response to the COVID-19 crisis.

The Passport Service staff cannot work remotely, they must be on site in order to process passport applications. This is to protect the personal data of the applicant and the integrity of the Irish Passport System.

The Global Irish Services Division of the Department is now focused on returning to a point when we can provide a full passport service. We will endeavour to do so as quickly as possible, while providing our staff with a safe working environment and in line with the Government’s Roadmap to reopen Ireland’s economy and society. The protection of staff is our first priority but we also recognise that providing passports is an essential public service. I encourage Deputies to stay in contact with my office for updates in relation to the Passport Service.

Discussions regarding travel documents have recently taken place at a European level, after which the European Commission decided not to recommend a coordinated extension of the validity of member state’s travel documents. Accordingly, Ireland has no plans at present for the validity of passports to be extended beyond their expiry date.