The Passport Office hauled before PAC to explain delays

DELAYS of up to eight weeks in issuing new and replacement passports will see the issuing authority called before a Dáil committee.

Yesterday a Fianna Fáil senator was left fuming after he drove from Roscommon to Dublin to pick up a passport for a constituent he had been led to believe was ready.

‘I couldn’t get it. It hadn’t been done,’ Senator Terry Leyden told the Irish Daily Mail.

‘People are being let down all over the place, and it is not like the very good service that used to be there.’

Now Fianna Fáil’s chair of the Public Accounts Committee, Seán Fleming, has confirmed that the Passport Office will be appearing before it next Thursday, June 21.

He said there was ‘widespread dissatisfaction relating to the significant delays in processing passport applications’.

Mr Fleming, a TD for Laois, added: ‘It is crucial that there is an opportunity, in public, for them to provide an explanation for these delays.’

The Department of Foreign Affairs is also scheduled to appear at the committee next week, while people are being reminded that adult renewals are now much easier to apply for. It can be done online, 24 hours a day, no matter where a citizen is in the world, and with the added facility of uploading their own photo – cutting out both the photobooth and Garda validation.

Mr Fleming said Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney should be taking more of an interest in the matter, since a key element of the department’s function is the issuing of passports to Irish citizens.

‘It is thus necessary that senior officials from the Passport Office also come before PAC next week with their department,’ Mr Fleming said.

‘This year’s situation is worse than ever. But people pay a considerable amount for this service and have every right to expect a professional response from this public body.’

‘Those most acutely affected as it stands are those who have availed of the Passport Express service. It’s of huge importance that the Passport Office takes all necessary steps to sort out this mess once and for all.’