Upgrades to Ireland’s online passport application system have been announced aimed at speeding up first-time domestic applicants, including children who had often faced lengthy waiting times.
The Passport Service, inundated with demand in recent years, can now access information directly from the General Register Office (GRO), negating the need for parents to attach physical documents such as birth certificates.
The GRO is run by the Department of Social Protection and holds all records relating to births, marriages and deaths among others. Passport officials will now have access to this information in real time.
The online system is the option of choice for the vast majority of citizens but first-time applicants typically faced a more prolonged experience than those simply renewing their documents.
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“Over 90 per cent of citizens now apply for their passport with Passport Online and this additional enhancement to the system will greatly improve the application journey for citizens,” Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin vowed, announcing the move on Friday.
The system changes have been introduced ahead of what is expected to be another summer of heavy demand, often with people only realising their documents are out of date shortly before going on holiday. The service has renewed its longstanding appeal for people to ensure their passports are still valid far in advance of travel plans.
Following a data sharing agreement between the Department of Foreign Affairs and the GRO, the Passport Service can access birth certificates in cases where the applicant is a child, born in Ireland, seeking their first passport. A PPSN number will have to be provided beforehand.
A child applicant must also be under joint guardianship as outlined in the birth certificate, or where single guardianship has been granted through a court order.
Other changes have been made designed to ease a process often criticised for its complexity.
The service will be able to provide a bespoke list, in plain English, of the documents an applicant is required to submit. An Eircode feature has been introduced that will help people accurately complete address fields as part of their online application.
This year to date, 370,000 passports have been issued. Current online estimated delivery times stand at 10 working days for a simple adult renewal, and 15 days for more complex adult renewals and for children. Online applications for first time passports, always the most time consuming, stand at 20 working days, or about a month. All of these compare to about eight weeks for those using the postal service.
The service has come under continued criticism in recent years but has been dealing with huge demand, often pent up due to Covid-19 related lulls in travel activity.
Mr Martin told the Dáil on Thursday that just under 1.1 million passports were expected to be issued this year, reporting no backlogs and turnaround times in line with expectation.
