Parents and gardai signing forms on different dates and uncontactable witnesses are the two biggest hold-ups in securing a child’s passport, it has emerged.
A TD revealed the news following a summer of hell when many families missed holidays because new passports didn’t arrive on time due to mistakes unwittingly made on application forms.
Cavan-Monaghan TD Niamh Smyth said Oireachtas members are inundated with hundreds of complaints, queries and requests for help from the public every year in relation to passport applications.
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But she said the general feedback from the Passport Office is they aren’t issued in time because certain documents are not adequate.
She stated: “The common issue I am seeing is on the consent form for a child’s first time passport. The main issue here is that the parents are signing it on one date and the Garda or relevant witness is signing it on a different date.
“This will not be accepted by the Passport Office and will be returned to you.
“This can delay your application substantially as you need to complete a second consent form and get it witnessed again and submit it to the Passport Office. They need to be on the same date.
“The second issue is that your chosen witness needs to be accessible on the phone to verify the consent form when your application is being checked.
“Unfortunately during the summer months I saw principals of schools who witnessed forms being uncontactable as they are not in the school when the Passport Office rang. These are issues that need highlighting.”
She said the Passport Office confirmed to her that these were the two biggest errors causing delays on children’s applications and they are easy to avoid.
A children’s Irish passport is valid for five years.
The backlog of children’s passports waiting to be processed at the beginning of June was around 200,000.
Many families missed out on the holidays because of the resulting delays causing a huge amount of anger.
It is understood that delay has since been reduced substantially.
A first time children’s passport application is regarded as a “complex“ case and can take at least 25 days.
Families are being urged to make the applications online and well in advance.
Last night a Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman revealed there are currently 130,000 passport applications in the system but this does not represent a backlog.
The spokesperson said: "These applications are all being processed in the usual way with a continuous stream of new applications and a continuous dispatch of completed passports happening every day.
"The Passport Service issued 20,000 passports last week and almost 800,000 passports have been issued to date this year.
"The Passport Service is producing record numbers of passports, beating the previous busiest year, 2019, by almost 20%.
"80% of applications are renewal applications for both adults and children. Turnaround time for online adult renewals is 10 working days. Turnaround time for child online renewals is 15 working days.
"Turnaround time for first time online applications is 25 working days.Turnaround time for An Post's Post passport service is eight weeks.
"For time online applications take longer to process due to the necessary security checks. These are currently taking 25 working days. The processing time has been reduced by 40% since March when it was 40 working days."
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