Appeal to reopen offices as 80,000 wait for passports

'We can’t understand why the passport offices in Cork and Dublin are closed to the public. It is an essential service,' says the ITAA. Picture: Collins

An appeal to open passport offices in Cork and Dublin to tackle a backlog of applications has been made by the Irish Travel Agents Association (ITAA).

Pat Dawson, chief executive of the ITAA, said that people have had to miss family funerals because of delays to passport processing, and families have left children at home as they belatedly found that their passports had expired before a trip.

"It’s not all about leisure travel. It really is a scandal," said Mr Dawson.

“The delays are causing major headaches to people, particularly if it's a new application, like for a child.

“We can’t understand why the passport offices in Cork and Dublin are closed to the public. It is an essential service.

It’s anti-travel, but the Government has been anti-travel for the last two years, this is just another obstacle.” 

He said that a new passport is taking eight to 10 weeks to process.

A backlog of some 80,000 passports was slowing down applications up to recent days, he said.

A surge in demand is also clogging up the system, as more people from the North and Britain have applied for Irish passports since Brexit and after the lengthy travel ban was lifted, thousands of people here are suddenly looking to renew their passports, he said.

"I know people who are booked for late November to Christmas, they’ve paid over the money but they’re now worried they won’t get their passport on time. And there’s no reason for it."

He believes that if passport offices reopened, backlogs could be cleared and applications could be processed for people who needed them quickly on compassionate grounds. 

“When the passport offices were open, they were the most efficient people.

Backlog

“Other Government departments are now open so why are passport offices still not open and why is there still a backlog of 80,000?"

He said that the travel industry is still struggling despite the recently lifted travel ban.

“We were already only 20% of 2019 sales and we’re still on our knees and will be until summer bookings start in March 2022. So we’re, unfortunately, still in the same situation as we were six months ago."

The Department of Foreign Affairs website says that Passport Online is the most efficient way to apply for a passport.

Simple adult renewals online are processed within 10 working days while a child renewal is normally processed within 15 working days, said the department. For first-time applicants which are more complex and require more documentation, online applications are processed within eight weeks, it said.