Holiday crisis: Passport off ice backlog is now SEVEN weeks
... and that’s using the State’s so-called ‘Express Service’!
A MASSIVE Brexit backlog means that citizens are waiting up to seven weeks before receiving their passport through the State’s express service.
The Passport Express service is marketed as taking 15 working days, but the backlog means it is currently the slowest way of getting new or replacement passports.
Two months ago, the average waiting time was 25 days or five weeks, meaning the situation has worsened coming into the summer holiday season .
The wait also applies to those who have lost or damaged their passport, or had it stolen and are looking for a replacement. This wait only applies to processing and doesn’t include the time it takes to be posted.
Online renewals are normally due to turn around within ten working days or two weeks. Passport Express renewal applications are due in 15 working days or three weeks.
Northern Ireland Passport Express Renewal Applications usually take 17 working days or three and a half weeks.
Despite repeated contact with Tánaiste Simon Coveney’s Department of Foreign Affairs, the press office was incapable of providing the usual average waiting times for each of these categories.
A spokesman said: ‘There are a significant number of applications in the system at any one time, depending on the volume of applications received. As an indication of output, the Passport Service recently issued over 22,000 passports in a one week period.’
Currently 416,000 passport applications have been made so far to the office.
This figure includes 41,000 applications from Britain, the department has confirmed.
One mother of two is waiting for her children’s passports to be sent back to her after waiting eight weeks for the service to respond to her.
‘I am due to fly out in three weeks, which will then be 11 weeks since I sent in the applications – and still no sign of them,’ she said.
‘It is impossible to get in contact with them over the last three weeks. I have sent 18 emails and wasted €30 in phone credit while sitting on hold, and still never received an answer.
‘I paid for Passport Express as I was under the impression that was the quickest way.’
The exasperated woman said she also sent ‘countless tweets’ to which she received only one reply, ‘which was not helpful’.
Tanya Daly also had a similar situation. ‘We had a long delay with my sister’s passport – over one month we were waiting for her passport.’
When asked if their communications team was helpful, she said: ‘To start with, you cannot ring them direct. I got a tip from another lady to ring the foreign exchange and they transferred me to the office.
‘Contact through email was poor but once we got through to the office we gave details, and they made a great effort to have it ready,’ she told the MoS.
Meanwhile, Fianna Fáil TD Niall Collins said: ‘I would be calling on the Minister for Foreign Affairs to put some extra resources into the passport office at this time to meet the backlog and the demand.’
‘You can’t ring the office directly’