The Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade will appreciate the great work done by the Passport Office. I wish to raise a specific issue with him in regard to that office. When a family has travel plans made, has a date booked and is waiting on a new passport for a child, great stress can be brought on that family when that passport application is returned. Very often this is close to the issuing date because the Passport Office has failed to secure verification of the Garda witness. As the Tánaiste may know, the Passport Office now telephones the Garda station. If it does not get through on three occasions, the office will return the application to the family, resulting in huge frustration and stress.

I put it to the Tánaiste that there is a more efficient way of doing this verification. I appreciate it is an important part of the process but I strongly suggest that verification should be done by an email system. It would be more efficient, transparent and speedy. I ask the Tánaiste, as the Minister for foreign affairs, to please take this issue up with the Passport Office and try to introduce this change. I raised this issue previously under a Topical Issue matter a number of months ago. I just want to try to continue to highlight the issue because I think we can avoid the level of stress and frustration brought on families when they have a travel date pending.

The Deputy is entirely right. It is an enormous stressor. Verification is really important. The Deputy has made that point and it is absolutely correct. Child protection and all those aspects are really important and no one in this House would ever do anything to weaken that. We can move on from wondering if somebody will ever answer the telephone in a rural Garda station. Gardaí are very busy people. They are doing a great job getting out and about, and we want them out and about. By the way, I am really proud of the passport service and of its turnaround times. It is a great example of public sector reform. I am very interested in working with the Minister for justice to try to develop a better protocol that will move us towards the 21st century in terms of how this is done. In fact, I think we could further enhance the protection of a child through the use of technology in relation to this. I will talk to the Minister, Deputy O’Callaghan, and we will be back on this matter.