Some of the comments by the Prime Minister yesterday were, I think, unhelpful in that regard. The Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, and Maroš Šefcovic are building a good relationship as the two key negotiators on behalf of the UK and the EU in terms of trying to settle some of the outstanding issues on how we implement, with the maximum flexibility possible, the protocol into the future. We certainly will be working with both sides, and I speak to Maroš Šefcovic on a weekly basis. We want to try to find a way forward …

I thank the Deputy. I suspect there will be a lot of talk around passports in the weeks ahead as more and more people choose to travel again, and many, of course, have not even thought about travel for the last number of years. We expect a significant increase in passport applications. There are questions coming up that will allow me to address what we are doing in response, which is a dramatic increase in staff numbers in the Passport Office. Passport Service operations were severely disrupted by the Covid-19 pand…

Some 99% of online child renewal applications are issued within 15 working days, and it is important to say that.

However, on the issue raised by the Deputy, first-time applications take a lot longer and I urge parents of children who have never had a passport to apply now online if they are travelling this year. We are, of course, looking to bring down the turnaround times for first-time applicants, as well as for renewals, and we are putting a lot of extra staff and resources into that. The Passport Service reports that approximately 40% of first-time child applications are incomplete. However, our records show that this is …

As the Deputy would expect, the Passport Service is currently experiencing a high level of demand for first-time passports and renewals. We will probably do 100,000 this month. This year, we could end up doing 1.7 million passports. We have never reached 1 million before, even at the height of travel before Covid. That is the extent of the demand increase we are expecting. By the end of March, we will probably have 900 people working in the Passport Service, which is just under double what we had last summer. We ar…

The strategic compass is an exercise intended to provide enhanced political and strategic direction for the European Union’s security and defence policy for the next five to ten years. Once agreed by member states, this policy document will serve not only to outline the EU’s approach to the Common Security and Defence Policy, CSDP, but also to reflect the increasingly complex security landscape faced by the EU, and believe me, it is complex. Ireland has always engaged constructively in the development of the EU’s C…

Yes. With the strategic compass, member states are working to build a common assessment of the threats and challenges posed to the European Union. In addition, the compass will help the EU to become a stronger security provider at a global level as well as a more responsible and reliable partner that can respond to external crises, work closely with the United Nations and other partners, and protect the Union and its citizens. The challenge is to try to bring everybody's concerns and ambitions together in one docum…

I can confirm all of those things. We have brought to this debate a desire to see collective co-ordination across the European Union to ensure the EU can intervene in crisis situations in a way that is seamless and interoperable and that countries are not pulled into conflicts in a way they are not comfortable with. This is about trying to improve the EU's collective capacity to be able to respond to threats to the EU, but also to be able to make strategic interventions at appropriate and correct times to promote a…

I officially opened Ireland's embassy in Kyiv on 23 August last year. The opening of the embassy marked a new phase in our relationship with Ukraine, through which we can deepen and widen our bilateral co-operation. The embassy also provides consular assistance to Irish citizens and works closely with other EU member states in further developing the EU-Ukraine relationship. The decision to open an embassy in Kyiv was taken as part of the Government's Global Ireland 2025 initiative. It is one of 14 missions that hav…

As I said earlier, as part of the Government's global strategy an embassy began operating in Kyiv last summer on 7 June. It was officially opened by me in August. The embassy's remit is to deepen bilateral relations with Ukraine, provide consular assistance to Irish citizens and work closely with other EU member states in further developing EU-Ukraine relations. Ukraine is a strategically and economically important European country and a key partner for the EU under the eastern partnership. The opening of the embas…

Of course we cannot talk about Kyiv and Ukraine without referring to the current context, to what is happening in global politics and the concern and threat that exist. Our staff remain in Kyiv but we have contingency plans if people need to leave. We do not regard it as appropriate at this time to bring people home. We are committed to Ukraine. We support its sovereignty, its developing bilateral relationship with Ireland and, of course, its developing and positive relationship with the EU. Should Ukraine be invad…

I am very aware of the pressures in relation to passports. Many people in this House have come to me directly on individual cases. We have also set up an Oireachtas support line that can help staff in Deputies' offices to deal with cases when they emerge. This month we will have more than 100,000 passport applications to deal with, and this year we are planning for a possible 1.7 million passport applications. Just to put that into context, we have never hit 1 million applications before. Even at the height of trav…

On advertising, I hope the Deputy has noticed the campaign that has been very active during January to get people to check their passports. We have advertisements in newspapers and on radio to encourage people to check their passports early if they are planning to travel this year so that we can try to get as many applications in as early as we can for travel, predominantly over the summer months. I am sure there will also be travel over the mid-term and Easter too. We have an advertising campaign and I will feed b…

If I can just correct the record, we are not taking on 1,000 new staff. What I said was that by the end of March we hope to have about 900 staff in the Passport Office. We currently have about 770. The context of that is we had about 467 in the middle of last summer, so the staff numbers are almost doubling. On first-time passports, I emphasise we have to make sure the integrity of the system is protected and we have robust processes in place to protect the integrity of the system against fraud, potential child abd…

Despite of all of that, we still think we can get turnaround times down significantly. From 40 days, I would like to bring it to closer to 20 working days if we can.

We are working on that. The communications between the applicant and the Department are essential.

I propose to take Questions Nos. 9, 13, 42, 53, 57 and 73 together. Throughout the course of last year, the European Commission undertook extensive outreach to political leaders, businesses, civil society and other stakeholders in Northern Ireland. This process culminated on 13 October 2021 with the presentation of a comprehensive package of proposals aimed at providing a credible and durable solution to the genuine issues on the ground in Northern Ireland. The package makes proposals around issues of customs check…

First, I am speaking to businesses in Northern Ireland. We speak to them regularly, through online forums or when we have an opportunity to meet directly with businesses in Northern Ireland. Other colleagues do the same. On my meetings with the Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, I know her reasonably well from previous portfolios we would have been working on together. When I was the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, she was my counterpart in the UK. She is a very able minister. She has held many portfolios…

I agree with the comments that have been made by all sides in the House. This is an issue that needs to be resolved politically. It is helpful, by the way, that the Brexit negotiations are now back in the Foreign Office because Foreign Secretary Truss is very much aware of the broader issues. We also spoke at length about Russia-Ukraine, for example, at that meeting on 6 January. She is very conscious of the need for the EU and the UK to build a strong new relationship on global and European matters, in addition to…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 10 and 35 together. I recently attended an informal - what is called a Gymnich - meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brest on 13 and 14 January. On 14 January, we were joined by fellow EU defence ministers to discuss the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy, CSDP, and more specifically the strategic compass, which I addressed earlier when the Deputy was not in the Chamber, and on which I have given an update to the House today. The strategic compass provides for greater work in th…