Staff prioritise urgent travel applications

PASSPORT DISRUPTION:THE LEVEL of disruption at the Passport Office in Dublin eased significantly yesterday after management and staff agreed to prioritise urgent travel applications.

However, the Department of Foreign Affairs said the backlog of unprocessed applications continued to rise as a result of industrial action by civil servants over pay cuts.

A spokesman said there were between 45,000 and 50,000 outstanding applications as a result of the disruption to the service. He said the ‘‘public panic” surrounding the industrial action had in part caused some of the chaotic scenes of the previous few days.

‘‘Many people who did not have immediate travel plans had attempted to process applications early fearing the service may be disrupted for weeks,” he said.

But this had largely subsided since it became clear that immediate travel plans were now being accommodated, he said. Yesterday morning, queues did form outside the Molesworth Street office for a time but they were considerably shorter than previous days when hundreds endured lengthy waits to secure their travel documents.

By mid-afternoon, there was nobody queuing outside the office for the first time in more than a week of industrial unrest.

Civil Public and Services Union assistant general secretary Theresa Dwyer rejected accusations that the union had deliberately targeted the Passport Office to cause maximum disruption, blaming the chaotic scenes of previous days on “mismanagement of the situation” by the Department of Foreign Affairs and management at the passport service.

Ms Dwyer said the situation remained “very stressful” for staff at the office as there was still a significant level of public anger at the situation.

She said the union’s disputes’ committee will meet early next week to decide on how to proceed with its industrial action.