Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent)
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208. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the reason for the delay in obtaining passports for children especially; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36982/21]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Passport Service commenced the scaling up of operations on 4 May 2021 in line with the phased easing of restrictions set out in “COVID-19 Resilience and Recovery 2021 – The Plan Ahead”.

The Service has been focused since then on four priority areas.

- Clearing the COVID-19 backlog of 89,000 passport applications.

- Processing all adult renewal applications (including new applications) within 10 working days.

- Processing urgent and emergency applications.

- Providing customer services through our telephone and web chat team.

Very substantial progress has been made in clearing the COVID-19 backlog: all backlog applications which were completed properly have been processed and related passports issued. As regards incomplete COVID-19 backlog applications, the Passport Service has been in contact with the applicants regarding the need to send in outstanding documents. Once all outstanding required documentation is received, issuance of passports will be expedited.

The Deputy will appreciate that processing of applications for Irish citizen children is particularly complex, given that the consent of all guardians must be obtained and fully verified before any application can be approved and a passport issued. Over the last two months as the Passport Service has scaled up its operations, renewal of a child’s passport has taken on average 16 days, in cases where the application was completed properly. The Passport Service’s goal is to continue to scale up operations post Covid-19 and to return to normal levels of service as soon as possible.

I wish to highlight that our telephone and web chat services are available to all citizens whose passport applications have unfortunately been affected by COVID-19 restrictions. Customers are encouraged to contact our Customer Service Hub if they require assistance urgently.