Carol Nolan: Calls for Regional Passport Offices as 195,000 Wait

Minister, we have a crisis situation here. We have absolute chaos. We have 195,000 applicants still waiting for their passport, as you know. I know in my own constituency offices in Leith and Offaly that the volume coming in is actually on par with housing and health, which I thought I would never see. It has always been housing and health in that order in terms of volume of issues and volumes of the most pressing issues coming in. But I do recognise that 300 staff were taking on additional staff since last June, bringing the total number to 760. But what I am disappointed in is that there wasn't more efforts to bring on more staff, knowing that this was going to exacerbate into the huge problem that we now have today. I mean, you know, it's unfair on people. It's very unfair on families and it is a source of great stress and great disappointment. But I can only imagine what the stress levels are like inside the passport office as well with those staff. So it's totally unfair. And it's through no fault of the staff. It's to do with the whole organisation and the system as it runs and the system as we know it. It needs to be improved. It has to be brought up to standard and indeed moved with the times. You know, I think, and it has been alluded to a number of times here, that we need more passport offices. And I think that would be a very logical solution to have passport offices in all of the regions. You know, I do feel certainly that coming from the Midlands, there is a need for that type of state service in the Midlands. We have been left behind many of the other regions. But I do think the fair thing to do is to put passport offices and make sure every region is represented. And that would certainly alleviate the pressure on the staff inside trying to deal with massive volumes and the system really working with a system that is not fit for purpose. But I suppose the real disappointment here is that this has been ongoing for over a year and there was ample time to do more and indeed to maybe redeploy staff from other departments in addition to the 300 hired people. And there was definitely scope and there was time for planning. But again, you know, it's a failure to plan, I feel, that has led to this situation getting really, really, I suppose, it's one of the few occasions where every TD and every party is in agreement. And so that speaks volumes in itself, like we're usually all at most times at odds on issues and have different opinions and different perceptions of how bad things are. But everybody here is saying it from every party that there is a serious crisis here. And I do feel that it is totally unacceptable for a family to be given an issue date and to make their plans and to use savings maybe in booking different activities or whatever for their holiday abroad. And then to be told or to discover that the passport hasn't come. It's very, very disappointing and I feel totally unacceptable. Again, it's the system in place, not the staff, the system. The other issue is that, you know, that if, you know, people were given, I suppose, time and given the communication in time and also, you know, as I said, a more efficient system, there has to be and there is a better way of doing business. And I believe that certainly the redeployment of staff is one way to try and help clear the backlog. But I know you mentioned earlier in your opening speech about, you know, encouraging people to do online applications and I agree with you. But all of the applications I've seen have been online applications and we still have a problem. So it's not due to the hard copies going in. It's a problem in the system and it's not all down to the applicants making mistakes with their forms either. I mean, there's a multitude going wrong here, but I believe that, you know, the core reason that we are where we are today is because of a system that is not fit for purpose. And that government need to be more proactive in opening up more state services around the country and not just concentrating in particular regions as they've always done. I think they need to be, you know, definitely more proactive in that regard and need to have, as I said, a passport office in the Midlands and in other regions where we can get through the backlog. But I hope that the communication will improve and I would call on you to take urgent action and to ensure that the communication with people improves. Because it's unfair to have families, working families, saving money, ploughing their savings into a holiday only to lose that money or their deposits or their flights. It's totally unfair and we have to find a better way. We have to move forward. But we have to ensure also that this doesn't happen again. We have to learn from this and make sure to plan properly and not to wait until things are failing and falling asunder as they are in this case. And again, there's no excuse for that. There was lots of time for the Minister for Foreign Affairs to intervene. And there was lots of things and lots of options that could have been pursued. Go raibh ma agat.