Passport delays due to ‘Beast’

WITH the holiday season quickly approaching, sunseekers are facing delays of up to five weeks in getting passports, and the Beast from the East is largely to blame.

The warning on how some holiday-makers may be stranded at home because of the recent spate of bad weather, emerged yesterday.

Delays issuing new documents have been acute for the last two weeks in particular, Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney told the Dáil.

‘There is a big demand for Irish passports now,’ he said. And the real problem was the extreme weather.

‘We have tried to put extra resources into my office over the last number of weeks. We had to close services down because staff could not get into the passport office for a number of days.

‘Whether with online or post applications, we are endeavouring to get back to where we were in January and at the back end of last year,’ he said.

There was ‘some success’ in efforts to restore the process to roughly three weeks for the postal service and two for an online application, he said. Fianna Fáil TD Darragh O’Brien said the record of more than 890,000 passports issued last year was likely to be exceeded this year.

‘Turnaround times have greatly lengthened. The passport service website says 16 working days, but it has been 21 working days and greater. All TDs have received numerous complaints about the service,’ Mr O’Brien said.

‘That was without coming into the holiday period itself. Normally, temporary staff are employed to tackle the increased demand. But there seems to be a detached approach. The Government seems to be satisfied to allow applicants to wait longer than the normal turnaround,’ he added.

Mr Coveney replied: ‘The processing time for passport express renewal applications is now 16 days again. This was reduced from 23 days two weeks.’

‘Real problem was the extreme weather’