John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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468. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the current salary costs for the Passport Service; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37054/22]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The current total salary costs for the Passport Service to date in 2022 is €13,855,831.

There are currently over 868 staff assigned to the Passport Service.

Adequate staffing of the Passport Service to respond to demand is a priority for my Department and is an issue that is kept under constant review.

The Passport Service has been scaling up resources to deal with anticipated demand for passports 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 Passport Service taking on over 560 staff since June 2021.

The Passport Service recently ran its own recruitment competition for Temporary Clerical Officers with a view to maintaining staffing levels throughout the year to meet the demand expected. The Department has also worked with the HSE to provide opportunities to contact tracing staff to transfer to the Passport Service. Beginning on 20 June, previous contract tracing staff have been assigned to the Customer Service Hub, which has further increased the number of staff answering customer queries. The Passport Service is seeing a significantly positive impact from this on its call handling figures.

The turnaround time for first time applications has also been positively impacted by the recruitment of additional staff. Turnaround time for these complex types of applications has reduced by 40% since March, down from 40 working days to 25 days. The Passport Service is focused on reducing this turnaround time even further in the coming weeks.

I am confident that the additional staff that have been assigned and will continue to be recruited over the coming weeks will continue to have a positive impact on processing times and the provision of enhanced customer service.