Radio star Lottie Ryan has said she is “absolutely livid” with the passport office – as she reveals she’s waiting almost eight months to get a passport for her son, Wolf.
The daughter of the late Gerry Ryan welcomed her son Wolf last year and is still waiting for his passport, despite correctly sending away his documentation.
Lottie said she feels the passport office are “taking the p*** out of her” as she vents her frustration over no one answering the phones in the passport office.
In a rant on her Instagram Story, Lottie said: “Popping on because I’m extremely angry about something and I need your help if possible.
“I am the guts of seven or eight months waiting for a passport for Wolf. The frustration is at an all time high because the passport office at this stage are, I feel like, they are taking the p*** out of me.
“I’ve been sent stuff back and told ‘oh this wasn’t entered correctly in the logbook at you Garda station’ so I went back to the Garda station, I redid everything. I saw the logbook, and everything was in the log book correctly so that was a little bit confusing but nonetheless I redid everything again.
“That was a couple of months ago and now I’m just after getting another email with the exact same stuff – stuff wasn’t entered correctly in the logbook at the Garda station, you’ve to redo everything again.”
She fumed: “Is this a joke? I’ve been to the Garda station; I’ve seen the logbook myself. The guards are confused. So now the guards are saying to me they don’t understand what the problem is.”
Lottie then went on to say: “There’s no one for me to call. The phone lines don’t work in the passport office. Then they say use the web chat, web chat never works, it is completely unavailable. No matter how many times a day I go on to try and use it, it’s never accessible.
“You can’t reply to any emails. There is literally nobody to talk to figure it out.
“I don’t know what to do. I’m at my wits end here trying to figure it out.
“How do I get my child a passport. Surely it should not be taking seven or eight months to get a passport and there is no customer service. Zilch.”
Lottie asked her followers for any advice, email addresses or contact numbers to help find out where her son’s passport is, saying: “I really need to get the passport”.
Earlier this month it was revealed more than 137,000 people applied for an Irish passport in January, the highest number on record in any one month.
Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney said the Passport Office was now dealing with “pent-up demand” after Covid-19 restrictions had been lifted.
He revealed that 570,000 passports that expired in 2019 had yet to be renewed and advised people to check whether their passport was up to date.
TDs and senators said they were being inundated with calls from constituents over delays, particularly relating to first-time applications.
Tens of thousands of people are waiting for their passport applications to be processed, with 1.7 million applications expected over the coming year.
Mr Coveney said the system had been put under “extraordinary stress” in the past six months.
He said standard online renewals were being processed in one day, but acknowledged that first-time applications were taking longer.
Speaking in the Seanad, Mr Coveney said these applications took longer because it was important to check the applicant’s identity and entitlement to Irish citizenship.
He said his department would be investing significantly in the passport service and staffing capacity had been increased. However, he warned that the service had experienced “unprecedented demand”.
In January alone, 137,452 passport applications were submitted. “The highest record before that was March in 2019 when it reached about 115,000,” Mr Coveney said.
A total of 634,000 passports were issued in 2021 compared to 936,555 in 2019 and 450,070 in 2020.
He urged people to read instructions regarding documentation carefully and warned that if mistakes were made, there would be delays.
“There are 66,000 complete applications being processed while 49,000 are waiting for applicants to submit necessary documentation,” he said.
“While they are dealing with very high demand, there isn’t a backlog, there are simply passports in the system.”
