I compliment the staff from the Tánaiste's office and the Passport Office who gave a briefing yesterday on the current delays in processing passport applications. Can the Tánaiste confirm how many extra staff have been recruited in the Passport Office to deal with the summer backlog? Is he taking any additional measures to address the delays?

I thank all the Deputies who took the time to come to the briefing. There was standing room only, which reflects the interest and involvement many Members have in and with the passport service. The Ceann Comhairle is also very familiar with that. At this time of year we take on a lot of extra temporary staff to deal with the increased demand through the summer months. We had particular challenges and problems during the very bad weather and these resulted in the targets we had been setting for turnaround times being temporarily undermined. We are now back on track in terms of the target turnaround times for both postal and online services. We intend to continue to try to improve those turnaround times.