Noel McCarthy (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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46. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if her Department is considering the provision of emergency passport appointments for first-time applications for children, or for adult renewal applications where the applicant’s passport is over 15 years from the date of issue; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [66736/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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All passport applications are subject to the requirements of the Passports Act 2008, as amended ('2008 Act').

First time applications are too complex to process at a public counter as they are essentially verifications of Irish citizenship.

It is the responsibility of the Passport Service to protect the integrity of the Irish passport system. As such, a rigorous process is in place to validate the identity of applicants and to confirm their citizenship status.

In the case of first time passport applications for children, the consent of guardians must also be thoroughly validated. It is vitally important that the consent of a child's guardians is witnessed correctly in order to protect the integrity of the passport application process and the rights of the child and their guardians.

In order to comply with its obligations under data protection legislation, the Department holds data collected for the purposes of processing an application, only as long as there is a business need to do so, in line with the purposes for which the data was collected. The Passport Service's Data Privacy Notice provides for data to be held for 15 years after the date of issuance. After this time, the data is due for destruction and will be destroyed in line with internal guidelines and guidelines for destruction received from the National Archives. A minimum amount of data can be held beyond this period for the purpose of fraud prevention. Therefore, a renewal application made more than 15 years after the issuance of a passport, is treated as a first time application.

Due to the extra measures applied by highly trained and experienced staff, first time online passport applications take 20 working days to process.

The Travel Emergency service is available to all citizens in cases of medical emergency or death of a family member abroad. The Passport Service will expedite a first time passport application where the criteria for travel emergency has been met and where the applicant's entitlement to Irish citizenship and identity has been proven. For all children's applications, the Child Identity and Consent form must be correctly completed, witnessed and validated by the Passport Service.