9. Deputy Colm Burke asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the action being taken by her Department to reduce the current re-processing timeline of a passport application where a query is raised, in view of the fact that when an additional information request is made, the application is paused until such time as the new documentation is received and processed, which can add an additional 15 working days to an application. [69138/26]

Will the Minister outline what action is being taken by the Department to reduce the current timeline for reprocessing a passport application query when a query is raised, in view of the fact that when an additional information request is made the application is paused until such time as the new documentation is received and processed, which can add an additional 15 working days, which is three full weeks, to the application?

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. If we look at the timelines and the work done this year, the passport service has issued over 740,000 passports to date, and it will continue to issue a significant number between now and the end of the year. All application types are currently being processed well within the advertised turnaround times. In fact, I would say that if people ordered a renewed passport this morning, it would be received in the post tomorrow, such are the turnaround times.

In the case of first-time and child renewal applications, supporting documents are required to be submitted. I appreciate, as we all do, that there is a process there that takes longer but it is, essentially, a confirmation of our citizenship, so it is an extremely important process that the office has to go through. The turnaround time for these applications begins on the date the required documents are received. We tend to see those paper applications being submitted, in particular, for the first-time child applications.

In cases where an application is incomplete or incorrect, and that is when we hear from people and they come to us, the passport service will contact the applicant to advise them of what is required to ensure their application is complete. The passport service then operates a document management system whereby incomplete applications are prioritised once the additional documents are received by the passport service. It had been the case previously where those applications may have gone to the back of the queue or might not have progressed as quickly. That has now changed, thankfully. It is now the situation that until the documents are received, those applications are paused, and then they are taken up and immediately prioritised once they come in. A number of steps still have to be taken once the documents are received, including registration, scanning, document verification and a review by an entitlement officer.

While it is said that this can take up to 15 working days, my experience is that when people engage with the Passport Office and send in those documents, and they are correct, the process moves much more quickly. However, there can sometimes be cases where there are challenges, and cases where the documents that have been resent have to then be sent again. These are the instances where we see applications taking a little bit longer. What we have tried to do to prevent that from happening, and I remember this from putting in the applications for my own two little boys, is put in place a form with a tick box at the front detailing exactly what applicants need to have sent in along with their applications. There are also video tutorials and a helpline for people to be able to ring up to make sure they have everything right. Additionally, when documents are sent in, they go directly to the team, so they know those documents are there on a desk and need to be scanned in. I will comment later on the office more broadly and how it has been expanded over the last number of years.

I thank the Minister very much. It is important that I first acknowledge that huge improvements have been made by the Passport Office. In fairness to the staff, they are extremely helpful when we do contact the office. My concern is that in a lot of cases where we run into problems, it relates to young children. If parents have two or three children who they are trying to sort out passports for, it is very stressful. When the notice comes and they are advised that it is 15 working days, people get even more stressed out. This is something we need to look at.

Equally, we need to look at the whole issue of advising people about getting applications in on time. I think the requirement should be that people should try, if at all possible, to get applications in four months before the time of a flight, because issues can arise. If two issues arise, for example, then there could be two periods of 15 working days. That is where the real stress comes from. This is something we might try to look at to see how we can help address the situation. The other question that comes up quite a bit is in relation to photographs for young children. It is a real difficulty, and something we need to look at as well.

We have campaigns but what I always try to do, and I encourage colleagues to do as well, is to highlight, insofar as possible and as often as possible, on our own social media and our own channels, just how important it is for people to apply on time. The ones that we hear about, and the ones that come to our offices, are naturally those instances where a mistake has been made, people have forgotten or people do not realise their passport is out of date. In particular, people might decide at the last minute to take a holiday and their infant child does not have their first passport. It is always advisable, therefore, to apply for a child’s passport as early as possible because a much longer process has to be gone through. Citizenship does have to be confirmed and a process also has to be gone through with the Garda and others in terms of checking, so the earlier a person can make those applications, the better. I will continue to make sure that our campaigns roll out throughout the year, and not just throughout the summer months. Actually, it is when it is not the holiday season that people should be thinking about making sure that their house is in order.

In terms of the photos, a lot of what was happening was to do with photos, with faces not being positioned correctly and issues in terms of lighting and backgrounds. There are video tutorials for families to be able to look at how to make sure their photo is correct and what they are sending in is correct. Where there are issues continuously emerging, however, as the Deputy highlighted, we need to do more to specifically home in on those issues and highlight them in our online system to ensure that when people go to the Department’s website, they can see those issues very clearly and they are brought to their attention before they make their application.

One of the problems we find is that people going on holiday, for example, in July, apply for passports in May, when, in fact, they could have easily applied in February or March. The Department might consider bringing forward the awareness campaign to early January or February. It is something that needs to be looked at to encourage people to apply well in advance of the time they intend to travel.

In relation to photographs, one of the common issues that comes up, especially with very young children, is the difficulty a parent has in trying to get a child to stay still for a photograph. It is one of the concerns that comes up quite a bit, and it can delay an application quite substantially. Can we look at that issue as well, as regards how we can expedite that whole area?

I again thank the Department and the Passport Office for the work they are doing and for dealing with situations where there are serious issues, especially when someone wants to travel for health reasons or to support a family member who is unwell in another country. I very much appreciate the help that is given to them.

With the agreement of the House, I call an Teachta Bennett.

I welcome the work the Passport Office does. I believe it is very efficient. I see many people getting their passports within a week of applying. I believe it is a fantastic service and does operate very well. I encourage people to apply online because it is the fastest process, whereas the paper process can be much slower.

What I would like to say today concerns the checks. I brought this issue up when I met the Passport Office in the audiovisual room one day. The Passport Office seems to have a system where it checks the photographs and the birth certificates as the application proceeds through the process, instead of checking everything in one instance. I have had complaints come into my office where people have had to wait six months because, on the first check of a passport, the pictures were not correct and they had to resend the pictures. The application then went back to the checker again but then the next issue arose, instead of all the issues arising during the first check by the Passport Office. I have requested before, and I request it again, that checkers request everything in the first instance instead of people posting documents back and forth and incurring postage costs as well. I thank the Minister.

I will be very honest. I have not heard of anybody waiting six months which is a long, long time because we now have 840 members of staff working around the clock to respond and to make sure the passports are posted out and everything is turned around as quickly as possible. Some 97% of passport applications are now online, so everything is uploaded and we do not have that issue with postage time, although that method is obviously quick as well.

For anybody whose application has an issue, it does not go back to the end of the queue. That does not happen. It is paused. The Passport Office cannot progress an application, particularly a first-time application, if it does not have all the details. I know from my own office and from dealing with the passport service, that if you pick up the phone and say there was an issue with an application but that the new documents are now in and ask the staff there to make sure it is progressing as quickly as possible, they generally do so. I have yet to see for myself where people are waiting up to 15 days.

At the same time, it is about making sure that we are all highlighting the need for people to apply on time, make sure their documents are correct and make sure things are signed appropriately so that, when the team receives them, applications can move through the process as quickly as possible. It is very much linear. I have been in the office a number of times, and it is not that an application goes from one part of the process and then takes weeks to get to another. They are all working in tandem with each other and moving at a really efficient rate, so much so that we have won awards in terms of our new online system. We now have a new passport as well, which is cutting-edge in terms of our security mechanisms.

All of the points made just highlight how well the Passport Office is doing but also the need to constantly highlight to people that they need to get their passport applications in on time and to appeal to them to please make sure their documents are correct.