Ken O'Flynn (Cork North-Central, Independent Ireland Party)
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32. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the details of the average turnaround times for passport applications submitted in Cork city and county since 1 May 2025; and whether he has considered expanding regional passport processing capacity. [44825/25]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The Passport Service is successfully responding to demand, and has issued over 700,000 passports to date this year. Passport applications are being issued at, or well ahead of, their target turnaround time and there are no backlogs.

With regard to the Deputy's question, the table below provides the advertised turnaround times as well as the average turnaround times for online applications for passports issued between 01/05/2025 and 31/08/2025, from applicants who listed their place of residence as Cork.

The Passport Online service offers citizens the ability to apply online for their passport 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This award-winning service has allowed for the centralisation of passport processing and has resulted in greater efficiencies for our citizens and for the Passport Service. Passport Online is a user-friendly, efficient service and is the quickest, easiest and most cost effective way to apply for a passport.

The Passport Service is a national service with processing offices in Dublin 2, Balbriggan Co. Dublin and Cork. While the Cork office operates an urgent appointment service for residents of the region, the majority of domestic online passport applications are registered, processed and dispatched from the passport office in Dublin.

The public office in Cork operates an urgent appointment service for renewal applications with a four day turnaround. During 2024, there were an average of 240 appointments available in Cork each week. Throughout that year, however, only 26% of appointments available in Cork were taken up. To date this year, only 18% of appointments available in Cork have been booked by passport applicants.

With regard to long-term plans for the Cork Passport Office, last year my Department worked with the Office of Public Works to identify a new office building in Cork. Based on current timelines, the Passport Office will be operational in the new Passport Office building at 1 Navigation Square, Cork City in late 2026. This new location will include a new public office well-equipped to serve the needs of citizens in the region.