Written answers

Tuesday, 24 May 2022

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Passport Services

Photo of Brendan GriffinBrendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael)
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292. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if additional staff will be immediately deployed to the Passport Office customer service and webchat sections given the extreme difficulties passport applicants are having communicating with the Passport Office; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25911/22]

Photo of Thomas GouldThomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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312. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the number of whole-time equivalent staff members currently working on the passport query telephone line. [26299/22]

Photo of Thomas GouldThomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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313. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the number of whole-time equivalent staff members currently working on the passport webchat service. [26300/22]

Photo of Simon CoveneySimon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 292, 312 and 313 together.

The Passport Service is proactively managing the current demand for passports and has put in place resources and structures to address the estimated significant increase in demand for passports in 2022 in this essential citizen service.

The Passport Service has been scaling up resources to deal with anticipated demand since June of last year. A major recruitment drive, in partnership with the Public Appointments Service, has been underway over the past several months. This has seen the number of Passport Service staff increase by 344 since June 2021.

In addition, the Passport Service is currently running its own recruitment competition for Temporary Clerical Officers (TCOs). The interviews have concluded and TCOs recruited from this competition are being assigned on a weekly basis from Monday, 23 May. The first group of 20 new TCOs started work on Monday, 23 May. This recruitment effort will bring staffing numbers at the Passport Service to over 900 which represents double the number of staff with the Passport Service in June of last year.

The Customer Service Hub will be the initial priority for allocation of new staff at the Passport Office in  Mount Street. The Passport Service Customer Service Hub officers respond to customer queries by phone and webchat as well as with enquiries related to Emergency Passport cases. The Customer Service Hub handled over 175,000 enquiries in 2021 and is currently handling over 6,000 customer contacts each week. During times of high demand, there can be delays in getting through to a service agent due to the high volumes of enquiries. The Passport Service webchat is also operational and customers should refresh the page if the icon is grey. A webchat operator is available when the icon is green.

Staff in the Customer Service Hub continue to work productively under increasing pressure. They are dealing with record numbers of calls and webchats every week, handling an average of 1,200 queries per day. Newly assigned TCOs are being directed to the Customer Service Hub as a matter of priority.

The staff in the Customer Service Hub consist of nine team leads and 40 customer service officers. Each week there are 6 teams on the phones and 2 teams on webchat.

The Passport Service will continue to consider ways in which to enhance the customer experience for citizens.

I am confident that the recruitment of additional staff, along with significant training initiatives, will have a positive impact on our response to customer service demand.

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