Passport Services
Dail Éireann — 2026-03-26
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Ryan O'Meara (FF), Tipperary North

To conclude, I believe communication with the public would help us in those final tricky cases we are seeing.
To be fair, as public representatives there are fewer and fewer passport issues coming to us because most of them are being sorted, as the Minister said, because of the investment the Government has put into the Passport Office and the increase in staffing numbers.
In relation to the witness for the photographs or the parents’ consent to a passport, people need to know they should go to a 24-hour Garda station. Someone will always be there to answer the call to verify and make sure the pictures are taken correctly. Parents should ensure they do not miss an email if they are queried on something. So they know, again I stress they should always apply online where possible. That should be communicated in a campaign and people should be directed towards those Garda stations which, to be fair, have a lot more to do in their job than just passports but are going to get that job when they are 24-hour stations. Members of An Garda Síochána need to know those key facts to be able to advise people to avoid the issue before it even has to come to us and then we have to go and hound the three Ministers for passports.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-03-26/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:47+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-26