Passport Services
Dail Éireann — 2026-10-01
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Helen McEntee (FG), Meath East

I will be very honest. I have not heard of anybody waiting six months which is a long, long time because we now have 840 members of staff working around the clock to respond and to make sure the passports are posted out and everything is turned around as quickly as possible. Some 97% of passport applications are now online, so everything is uploaded and we do not have that issue with postage time, although that method is obviously quick as well.
For anybody whose application has an issue, it does not go back to the end of the queue. That does not happen. It is paused. The Passport Office cannot progress an application, particularly a first-time application, if it does not have all the details. I know from my own office and from dealing with the passport service, that if you pick up the phone and say there was an issue with an application but that the new documents are now in and ask the staff there to make sure it is progressing as quickly as possible, they generally do so. I have yet to see for myself where people are waiting up to 15 days.
At the same time, it is about making sure that we are all highlighting the need for people to apply on time, make sure their documents are correct and make sure things are signed appropriately so that, when the team receives them, applications can move through the process as quickly as possible. It is very much linear. I have been in the office a number of times, and it is not that an application goes from one part of the process and then takes weeks to get to another. They are all working in tandem with each other and moving at a really efficient rate, so much so that we have won awards in terms of our new online system. We now have a new passport as well, which is cutting-edge in terms of our security mechanisms.
All of the points made just highlight how well the Passport Office is doing but also the need to constantly highlight to people that they need to get their passport applications in on time and to appeal to them to please make sure their documents are correct.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-10-01/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-10-05T01:01:00+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-10-01