Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The Passport Service is successfully meeting high demand for passports and has issued over 900,000 passports to date in 2023. Between 2,000 and 3,000 passports are being issued every day. All turnaround times are at or ahead of target and there are no backlogs. More than half of simple adult renewals issue within two working days or less.

The Passport Online service offers Irish citizens the ability to apply online for their passport 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is a user-friendly, efficient service that consistently offers processing times up to 4 times faster than paper-based passport renewal applications. Over 90% of all passport applications are made through Passport Online which is now available to 99.9% of all applicants across the world

Currently, 100% of calls to the Customer Service Hub are being answered and customers can easily access the information they need through the Hub. The Customer Service Hub responds to an average of 10,000 queries per week.

The Passport Service was recently placed 18th out of 150 public-facing organisations in a survey conducted by the Customer Experience (CX) group. This ranking recognised the Passport Service as the best customer service brand in the public sector. In addition, the Customer Service Hub in the Passport Service was shortlisted for the “Best Customer Service Team” award at the 2023 Customer Experience Awards. The nomination recognised the ability of the Passport Service to deal with the high volume of calls and webchats received to date in 2023, while also ensuring high levels of customer service.

I would ask the Deputy to encourage your constituents to apply online for the quickest, cheapest and most efficient service.

The numbers of applications received, online and by post, passports and passport cards issued from the Passport Service for County Carlow to date in 2023 are outlined below in tabular form.