THE MINISTER for Foreign Affairs has again called on the CPSU to drop a recruitment ban which means 50 seasonal staff cannot be employed to deal with a backlog of over 62,000 passport applications.
As of last Monday there were 62,008 passport applications in the system, a marginal reduction in the backlog, which Micheál Martin said were a direct result of the ongoing industrial action by the union.
“The backlog in passport applications can and will be overcome when the CPSU call off their industrial action and co-operate with the recruitment of temporary staff normally engaged at this time of year,” Mr Martin said yesterday.
He said the Department of Transport had obtained the necessary sanction to recruit 50 temporary staff, while arrangements had been made to recruit additional staff when necessary.
“I would once again call on the CPSU to withdraw this restriction and to allow a significant number of currently unemployed workers to take on paid employment and assist in reducing the sizeable backlog of passport applications.”
The Minister said the ongoing dispute was having a severe impact on the travelling public.
“Every effort is being made to reduce the waiting time for applications, pending the resolution of the industrial action. Staff have been working overtime for some weeks and this has kept the level of increase in the backlog to a minimum in recent days,” Mr Martin said.
At present it is taking 25 working days to process individual applications submitted through the passport express service, the Northern Ireland passport express service and at the counters in the passport office.
Applications submitted through the post are taking up to eight weeks to process.
Applications which are not prioritised on the basis of “demonstrable urgent humanitarian need” are being processed on a first-come first-served basis.