New figures show that more than 55,000 people are still waiting for a passport – with particular delays when it comes to issuing documents for young children.
“We’re over the hump,” he said. “Moving smoothly is probably overstating it but you have to compare the 55,000 with the 195,000 that were waiting at the beginning of June.” The new system moves that responsibility to Garda management – with a list of around 15 applications per day now going form the Passport Office to Garda HQ.While average online renewal times for adult passports are now 10 days, the average time for an online child renewal is 15 days.“Child trafficking is a huge international issue so the verification of children’s passports is a much more intense business than it would have been in the past,” he said.