Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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745. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the number of persons who have applied for a passport which has not yet been processed. [14060/21]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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At present, there are approximately 71,300 Passport Online applications in the system. When operations resume at Level 4, all applications received via Passport Online will be processed. The Passport Service is confident, taking into account measures to ensure a safe workplace, that any Passport Online backlog can be cleared in six to eight weeks.

There are currently approximately 4,200 paper based applications in the system. The Passport Service plans to resume processing of routine paper based applications such as Passport Express and Northern Ireland Passport Express at Level 3 of the framework. 

The Passport Service has a comprehensive plan in place to resume all services, in line with the National Framework for Living with COVID-19. Applicants will be notified by e-mail when we resume processing. The Passport Service has requested that applicants refrain from submitting documents until it resume operations.