I thank the Deputy for raising this issue because it is a major one for many people. My Department has made an unprecedented investment in the passport service by way of additional staff and improvements to the passport and customer service systems. The passport service is proactively managing the current demand for passports and has put in place resources and structures to address the estimated significant increase in demand for passports in 2022 in this essential citizen service. More than 400,000 passports have …

Regarding turnaround times, the processing time for first-time applications reduced from 40 days to 30 this year, a 25% reduction in processing times. That is the position as of 19 April. A new system for managing additional documentation is also in place, because the Deputy asked for it in the House. The clock does not start again when people correct their paperwork when there is a problem. Instead, we now have a prioritised completion time within 15 working days when documents are corrected, rather than starting …

I would not claim we have a perfect system. We do not. We are improving it all of the time. We are significantly upgrading the software this year, so we will have, in effect a new IT system running our passport system from next year, which will give us a lot more flexibility. It is not a perfect system but we are putting extraordinary resources into ensuring that we have turnaround times that compare very favourably internationally. I would like to give the Deputy a sense of what other countries experience, countri…

Some 45% of our passport renewals for adults are done within 48 hours. There is a great deal that is good about our passport system, despite the fact that we are producing about double the number of passports each month this year compared to what we were producing up until three or four years ago. A total of 4,000 to 5,000 passports a day are going out to people. There are individual cases where there are problems or difficulties with paperwork and we have glitches in the system, which happened this week and impact…

The question was about costs, so I will address that issue first and then come back to what we have achieved while we were there. The costs incurred by Ireland during our campaign for a seat on the Security Council were approximately €860,000. This includes the event launch, promotional material and campaign-related travel and subsistence. These costs compare favourably with those of our competitors. Norway, for example, spent €2.8 million on its campaign. Canada, which we beat in that process, spent €1.5 million. …

No. I did not give that figure.

I assure the Deputy that we do not have a policy of outsourcing at all. We are probably the most vocal small country on the planet when it comes to foreign policy. I challenge the Deputy to name a small country that is more vocal than Ireland is on many of the key issues at the moment. We are about to take over the chair of the Council of Europe for the next six months. We are on the Security Council and an extremely active member in the EU. We are vocal on almost all the UN panels and organisations. If the Deputy …

Ireland has been a staunch and unwavering supporter of Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression. We are not, and should not be, neutral in this war. That does not mean that we are undermining traditional Irish neutrality. We are not doing so. We remain militarily non-aligned, but that does not mean Ireland does not take sides when a country is blatantly breaking international law and the UN Charter and brutalising another country, which is what is happening as we speak.

We should not be neutral on that issue. On 19 April, I promised the Mayor of Bucha, Mr. Anatoliy Fedoruk, and the Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Dmytro Kuleba, that I would brief the UN Security Council on my visit to Ukraine. I was the first foreign minister of any country to visit Kiev. A number of prime ministers were there before me. I committed to highlighting Russia’s disregard for international humanitarian law. Ireland will continue to use our membership on the UN Security Council to hold Russia…

I agree with the tenor of the question. Of course, ultimately, this is about bringing the war to an end. Like every other country, we have to find ways of doing that. While that is proving impossible at the moment because the Kremlin does not want the war to end yet and, therefore, there is no basis for a possible ceasefire right now, that does not mean we should not keep trying. In the meantime, we have to put in place the strongest possible deterrents to the continuation of the war. That means very tough sanction…

That is all the people of Ukraine ask and that is the approach we take. When I was in Kyiv, I spent at least an hour talking to two of the most senior negotiators for the Ukrainian President, who have negotiated and continue to negotiate with their Russian counterparts to explore those opportunities.

First, it is important for us not be naive in terms of our own potential influence. However, we will continue to offer Ireland as a country that wants to explore compromise and solutions. We will continue to keep talking, as is happening at Security Council level and elsewhere. I plan to reopen our embassy in Kyiv. It is a step-by-step process because we have to manage the security consequences of doing so. It should not be forgotten that I opened the embassy only last August. That thriving European city has, unfor…

I thank the Deputy for his suggestions, which are very helpful. His question indicates he is primarily concerned with first-time passports, which is the process that is taking longer at the moment. Since March of this year, the passport service has reduced the processing time for first-time applications from 40 working days to 30. This 25% reduction in processing times is a direct result of the substantial level of investment my Department has made in the service.  It is important to note that the reduction in turn…

My Department deals with tens of thousands of telephone calls. So far this year, the figure is some 90,000. I may stand corrected on this but, from memory, that is the approximate number. We have also set up an Oireachtas helpline for Members, which has dealt with thousands of calls. However, I take the Deputy's point. There is an issue with people applying for a first-time passport for a child, getting an estimated delivery date, booking holidays and then later finding there is a problem with the application. We a…

The public desks are open.

So far this year the Department has issued 400,000 passports, approaching 500,000. We are trying to put the most efficient system in place. We have a system whereby 4,000 to 5,000 passports a day are going out to people. If half those people were to collect their passports at the desk in the Passport Office, it would slow the system down considerably. We have a system that works with An Post whereby we have a constant throughput of passports by the thousand every day. If a passport needs to be pulled out of the sys…

Yes, so we are trying to get the system running by itself as efficiently as we can.

I thank the Deputy. It is important that this House focuses on Belarus's role in this war as well as Russia's because Belarus has been complicit in much of what has happened. The EU has condemned Belarus's involvement in Russia's unprovoked and unjustified military invasion of Ukraine. In response to the invasion, since late February, the EU has adopted a wide range of sanctions measures targeting both Russia and Belarus. A sixth sanctions package is currently under discussion and is expected to be adopted in the c…

There are many in this House who have a knowledge and connection with Belarus - I suspect Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan is probably one of them - as have I. Since the fraudulent presidential elections, the European Union has focused on trying to support and facilitate democracy in Belarus. Certainly, the facilitation by the Belarusian authorities of a Russian military build-up in Belarus in order to facilitate the invasion of Ukraine also makes the Belarusian authorities complicit in what has happened. What we are tryi…

My focus is to do everything we can as a country and as a member of the European Union to bring this war to an end and to promote democracy in Belarus to ensure that the people there get the government and the president they elect, as opposed to skewed election results. The only tools we have available to us for doing that for now are sanctions. Belarus is so reliant on Russia now for its security that, unfortunately, the current Belarusian regime is shackled to the decisions of the Kremlin. We have to treat both i…