Written answers
Wednesday, 31 March 2021
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Passport Applications
Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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526. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the current figures for those awaiting passports by county due to the postponement of services; the expected wait times for passports once processing resumes; the steps he will take to ensure the backlog is dealt with quickly; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17315/21]
Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Passport Service has a comprehensive plan in place to resume all services, in line with the National Framework for Living with COVID-19. 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.
The approximate number of Passport Online applications per county currently under process is set out in the table below.
County | Passport Online application under process |
|---|---|
| Antrim | 4,100 |
| Armagh | 900 |
| Carlow | 300 |
| Cavan | 400 |
| Clare | 700 |
| Cork | 3,400 |
| Derry | 1,300 |
| Donegal | 900 |
| Down | 2,700 |
| Dublin | 12,400 |
| Fermanagh | 300 |
| Galway | 1,800 |
| Kerry | 800 |
| Kildare | 1,700 |
| Kilkenny | 500 |
| Laois | 500 |
| Leitrim | 200 |
| Limerick | 1,400 |
| Longford | 200 |
| Louth | 900 |
| Mayo | 700 |
| Meath | 1,500 |
| Monaghan | 300 |
| Offaly | 400 |
| Roscommon | 300 |
| Sligo | 400 |
| Tipperary | 900 |
| Tyrone | 1,000 |
| Waterford | 700 |
| Westmeath | 600 |
| Wexford | 800 |
| Wicklow | 1,100 |
These figures are correct to 26 March 2021.
There are currently approximately 1,700 paper based applications in the system. It is not possible to break these out by county. 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.
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