Big push to restore normal passport service - Martin

THE ISSUING of passports should “return to more normal patterns in due course”, Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin told the Dáil.

He said passport office staff continued to work overtime to assist in keeping the number of applications in the system to a minimum.

“Recently, 50 additional temporary staff commenced work in the service and are working with permanent staff members to clear the backlog,” he said. “These measures alone have allowed for more than 68,000 additional passport applications to be examined over and above those considered during normal hours.”

Mr Martin said he was prepared to recruit additional temporary staff if necessary. He accepted that the current service was not of the standard the public was entitled to expect. Progress was being made, said Mr Martin. The service had reintroduced a guaranteed turnaround time for applications.

Those submitted via the passport express service, Swiftpost in the Republic and NIPX in the North, available through local post offices, were now guaranteed to be processed within 20 working days.

Mr Martin said that applications with proof of travel were guaranteed to be processed within three working days.

Pat Breen (FG, Clare) suggested that the 13.8 per cent increase in the number of passport applications being processed this year was due to emigration.

He said he had recently raised with the Minister the need to establish an additional passport office outside Dublin. Mr Martin said the main reason for the increase was the publicity surrounding the delay caused by industrial action. Many people decided to get their applications in for fear of delays.

Mr Martin said overtime and the recruitment of additional temporary staff had a positive impact because the number of passports being issued daily now was in the region of 3,200.

The public counter or the wire services, he said, should only be used by those travelling because of a family emergency.

All other applications should be submitted via passport express channels. Extension of the service was subject to capital funding, and priority would be given to the northwest because of the Northern Ireland demand and so on, said Mr Martin.