Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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42. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the current number of outstanding passport applications that were submitted more than one, two, three, four, five and six months ago; the total number of applications on hand; and the current number of staff in the Passport Service. [48266/22]

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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44. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the status of passport applications and processing times at present; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [48178/22]

Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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57. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the number of persons living in Cork who are currently awaiting a passport. [48907/22]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 42, 44 and 57 together.

The Passport Service has issued over 940,000 passports to date this year and 2022 will be the first year ever that over 1 million passports will be issued. The Passport Service is currently out-performing its previous busiest year (2019) by 17%.

The total number of fully complete online and postal applications on hand with the Passport Service is 29,000. The vast majority of these will be processed within the normal turnaround times outlined below.

Thanks to significant investment by the Government, substantial improvements have been made this year and full, normal service has resumed.

Processing time for online first time applications has halved from 40 working days in March of this year to 20 working days. 84% of online adult renewal applications are being processed in 3 working days or less. All processing times for online applications have now returned to normal pre-Covid processing times.

The current processing times are:

- Online adult renewal - 10 working days

- Online child/complex renewal - 15 working days

- Online first time application - 20 working days

- Post Passport via An Post - 8 weeks

Currently, 100% of calls and 95% of webchats are being answered by the Customer Service Hub and customers can easily access the information they need through the Hub. In addition, my Department is implementing a staffing plan to ensure that excellent customer service is maintained during periods of peak demand.

Staffing numbers in the Passport Service have doubled since June 2021 and there are currently 828 staff. New office space on the Balbriggan campus is now open and provides over 200 additional workstations to accommodate the increase in staff numbers.

The number of fully complete online and postal applications submitted to the Passport Service for processing over 1 month ago is 3,272. The number of complete applications submitted over 2 months ago is 1,653. The number submitted over 3 months ago is 1,117. The number submitted over 4 months ago is 976 and the number submitted more than 5 months ago is 643. Finally, the number of complete passport applications submitted over 6 months ago is 254.

The vast majority of these relate to very complex or sensitive cases that may involve citizenship, guardianship or legal issues. These require very thorough examination by experienced staff and can take longer to process.

In addition, the Passport Service has recently written to 15,000 applicants, who submitted their application online but have not submitted any of the required supporting documentation. These applications date back as far as May of this year.

The number of applications currently in the Passport Service system from applicants residing in Cork is outlined below. This table also breaks down the number of applications that are currently being processed by the Passport Service and the number of applications that are awaiting further action from the applicant.