Fine Gael TDs call for junior minister for passports to tackle backlog

Fine Gael politicians have called for a junior minister with responsibility for passports to be appointed amid fresh concerns about the turnaround time for applications.

The parliamentary party met on Wednesday evening for more than two hours, during which there was widespread anger expressed about the delays in processing citizen’s applications, with Senator Martin Conway labelling it a “disgrace.”

Senator Conway said any planned diplomatic appointments should be postponed and those personnel should be redirected to the passport office to help with applications. He said a junior minister should be appointed who would take responsibility for the issue.

Laois-Offaly TD Charlie Flanagan said that up to 30 per cent of his constituency work is in relation to passports, and that many of those enquiries are from worried and anxious applicants. Some stand to miss family events such as weddings and post-Covid holidays while losing the price of pre-paid flights and accommodation, he said.

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Wexford TD Paul Kehoe said that Fine Gael was taking a lot of the blame for the length of time it is taking to process applications. He said his constituency office were taking the “brunt” of it, with staff sometimes being left in tears.

Mayo TD Michael Ring is understood to have told the meeting that the secretary general of the Department of Foreign Affairs Joe Hackett should be removed, sources said. Mr Ring was also critical of Mr Hackett’s salary, they added.

The meeting also heard complaints from TDs and Senators about delays in verifying Garda approvals of passport applications, with Minister for Justice Helen McEntee confirming that talks at a “senior level” are progressing to address the issue.

There are currently around 195,000 applications in the passport service system.

More than 460,000 passports have been issued to date in 2022, compared to a total of 634,000 passports issued in 2021.

In response to a parliamentary question, Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney has said that since March of this year, the Passport Service has reduced the processing time for first-time applications from 40 working days to 30 working days. He said that first-time passport applications were taking longer to process than renewal applications, but that the biggest cause of delays for first-time applications is “where incorrect or insufficient supporting documentation is submitted by the applicant.”

Tánaiste and Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar described the issues as “very serious”. He noted that 40 per cent of passport application forms have been filled out incorrectly or are incomplete, which he said demonstrated an issue with the forms rather than the applicants.

Separately, Mr Varadkar updated the party about his trip to Davos and said that following meetings there, there is a “prevailing view” that the war in Ukraine will go on for some time yet before there is a ceasefire.

He said there is a major effort to get grain out of the Ukraine and the surrounding regions.

He also said chief financial officers of leading global firms think inflation will soon peak.