Passport office staff to be doubled as record 1.7m applications expected

Passport office staff are to be doubled and millions of euro pumped into the service to meet record demand for documents as people prepare to travel in a post-pandemic world.

January recorded the highest ever number for applications at about 138,000, a massive surge in demand that authorities had been anticipating since last summer.

While renewals are often being turned around in 48 hours, those applying for their first passports are currently waiting up to 40 working days.

"That's a problem and we have to get that turnaround time down and we will," Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney said of the escalating situation on Friday.

Average Irish household throws out €700 worth of food every year

---

Groceries set to cost €780 more over next year

---

Pricewatch: Is the cost of your health insurance making you feel ill?

---

Dublin city street parking charges to increase next week

---

However, he offered assurances that there would be a capacity to meet demand.

"This year we are expecting about 1.7 million passport applications in Ireland. The highest ever was in 2019 before Covid which was about 935,000. So we are looking at a massive increase and we are gearing up for that," he told Newstalk Breakfast.

Last summer there were about 460 people working in the passport office and that will rise to about 900 by the end of March, he said. An extra €10 million has been set aside to fund the service.

Required solution

Mr Coveney defended the current processing times for renewals but conceded that first-time documentation was a problem that required a solution.

As of last week, there were 73,000 first-time applications in process. Of those, 43 per cent (32,000) were found to be incomplete applications, an issue that can delay the processing by weeks and even months.

However, with 90 per cent of all applications filed online, further problems recently emerged when that service was temporarily offline due to technical difficulties.

In response to a question on Wednesday, Mr Coveney said a scheduled system upgrade to improve the responsiveness and efficiency of the system was completed the previous Friday, and since then it had been running smoothly.

On Thursday, Fine Gael Senator Garret Ahearn suggested that airlines introduce online passport expiry checks in order to avoid passenger disappointment and missed flights.

“After almost two years of very little international travel there will inevitably be many people who forget their passports are out of date,” he said.

“People simply need a reminder to check their passports when they go to book their flights.”