THE PASSPORT service is receiving an “unprecedented” demand for new passports, with an average of 4,200 applications a day, the Dáil has heard.

Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Jan O’Sullivan said that on each of four recent days there were more than 5,200 applications from Irish residents alone.

This was 700 more than “the highest number of applications previously received for any one single day since records were maintained”. She said the service was also coping with an unprecedented demand for passports at short notice, with 350 people a day coming to the public office seeking passports within a period of less than 10 days. Ms O’Sullivan said that on Monday more than 600 submitted applications for a short-notice service at the public offices on Molesworth Street, Dublin, and Cork.

There are 51,628 passport applications in the system being processed in Dublin at Molesworth Street, Balbriggan, Cork and London – representing a 12 per cent increase in demand on 2009 figures. The Minister said that while “the exact reason for this increase in demand is unclear”, it is noticeable that passport applications for children are running at a level 18 per cent higher than the same period in the last few years. She added that anecdotally much of the demand relates to last-minute travel plans made for holiday reasons.

The Minister was responding last night to Bernard Durkan (FG, Kildare North) who had called for a review of procedures at the Passport Office and for a redeployment of staff to ensure the “delivery of a fast, effective and efficient service”.

Ms O’Sullivan said that 85 additional temporary staff had been taken on since April. “In conjunction with some seasonal overtime and other measures under consideration, the passport service is seeking to return passport turnaround times to normal levels at the earliest opportunity.”

She said some of the media comment on the scale of the delays had been inaccurate. “The delay of three working days in processing passport express applications is regretted. It is three working days and not the many weeks suggested by some media commentators.”

Passport express applications are still being produced within 13 working days, she said.

“Equally, over 70 per cent of applications submitted on the island come through the express services and, accordingly, the number of citizens experiencing weeks of delay has also been overstated,” she added.