Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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112. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the extent to which the processing of passport applications is being expedited to meet the demand; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27801/24]

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 625,000 passports this year to date.

Virtually all complete passport applications are being processed within or before advertised turnaround times. It is important to note that processing times are calculated once the Passport Service receives any supporting documents that are required to complete an application. Applications that are incomplete and require further supporting documents will take longer.

There are currently over 130,000 passport applications in the system. 64,000, or 49% of these applications, are with the Passport Service for processing. The remaining 51% are awaiting further action by the applicant before they can be progressed. This means that the Passport Service is waiting for the applicant to submit supporting documents in order to move the application forward.

The Passport Service is well staffed with 840 staff currently, and is in an excellent position to deliver on the demand forecast for the rest of this year. The Passport Service continually reviews demand and offers overtime, on a voluntary basis, to staff when necessary to meet demand.

The Passport Service offers Urgent Appointments for applicants who need to renew their passport urgently in time for travel. The Passport Offices in Dublin and Cork operate a four-day Urgent Appointment service for renewal applicants. The Dublin office also offers a one-day Urgent Appointment Service. The number of appointments available has increased this year with 220 one-day appointments now available each week in Dublin and 544 four-day appointments available between Dublin and Cork.

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. Passport Online is now available to 99.9% of all applicants across the world.

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