The passport services has been paused for along time due to the Level 5 restrictions. Many people have come up with complaints that they face a huge delay in getting their passports and related documents back. As per the records, till now around 57000 people are waiting for their passports applications to be processed.
The Department of Foreign Affairs makes it clear that the emergency and urgent services are offered online and people who have reasonable excuses for non essential travel should use the webchat function at the passport offices. The applicants need not submit the documents again and again as the submitted papers are held securely.
The Passport office had told the public that their documents will be returned back within 20 days of online processing. In case of urgency, certain arrangements can be made. The basic paper applications won’t mive until Level 3.
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties are in doubt on why they can’t restart the essential services in this phase. The executive director Liam Herrick feels that the passports are needed for identification purposes too. The Immigrant Council of Ireland has received number of calls from migrants who applied for passports even before the lockdown.