Passport Office

glut22

The passport office has not processed any applications since March. The web chat cannot say when this will resume.
I am living abroad in a very awkward remote location and my passport expires in June.
How is this not an essential service?

biko

Have you contacted the Irish embassy/consulate nearest you?
Does your passport need to be active for you to remain in the country you are in?

glut22

Well technically it does have to be active but they have relaxed rules due to covid. The borders are closed here and no flights on or off (it's an island).
The consulate will only do emergency passports issued from nearest embassy which is in the US.
So god forbid I needed urgent medical treatment via emergency air evactuation there will be a fair delay...
And if flights opened and I wanted to go home via the UK I couldn't after June and not at all via the US (these are the only flight options).

glut22

Issuing of passports is an essential service for citizens who have no other nationality. My friend works in an Bord Pleanala in Dublin and she is back in the office intermittently and actually has been working the whole lockdown. They have kept some services running. I don't understand why passports were pulled.

Jamie2k9

https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/travel_and_recreation/passports/replacing_a_lost_or_stolen_irish_passport.html#la6348


Details emergency criteria on link and I would expect a resumption in June.

biko

glut22 wrote: »

Well technically it does have to be active but they have relaxed rules due to covid.

It sounds like you can just rest easy then.
Are you stuck on the island because of corona?

ceadaoin.

Just bumping this to ask if anyone knows if they cleared much of the backlog before this most recent shutdown? I've applied online and will need a new passport to (hopefully) get a new visa for the US early next year. My current passport will expire in March but I highly doubt it will be done in time. Its beyond ridiculous that passports are not considered an essential service.

skeogh82

I applied online for a new passport during the last lock down and I had it within a few days of lockdown ending. But if you aren’t in ireland it might take longer than that. They did say on their website during the last lockdown that they were still processing emergency basis - might be worth contacting them to see what they can do for you...

faceman

I know of a few people who applied and got it within days. 1 friend said he got his during lockdown.

I applied for mine a few days ago and it was at the printing stage according to their website within 24 hours. The issue date however is 7th January so not sure what happens now

EDIT: status now is that my passport has been posted. That’s a 48 hour turn around

Beasty

From the website

The Passport Service has paused operations in line with the move to Level 5 of the Government’s National Framework on Living with COVID-19 from 24 December.

If you have submitted supporting documentation to us, it is will be held securely. However, we cannot retrieve supporting documents at this time. We expect to return your supporting documents within 20 working days of resuming operations at Level 4.
If you have not submitted supporting documents, please wait until Ireland has returned to Level 4 or lower on the National Framework for Living with COVID-19.

Passport Online is open to all applicants, including children, renewing their passports and those applying for their first passport who are resident in Ireland, UK, EU, EEA and Switzerland. These applications will be processed when the Passport Services resumes operations.

I'm amazed they do not consider this an "essential" service. They learned from the first lockdown and allowed more things to open in the second. They are allowing most retail to remain open, but preventing passport renewals!

JasonStatham

Anyone used photome option for the online application? Did you have to wait long before your photo ID was "activated"?

Should people wait now to do online application, given the restrictions? Or can they go ahead with it?

quaalude

JasonStatham wrote: »

Anyone used photome option for the online application? Did you have to wait long before your photo ID was "activated"?

Should people wait now to do online application, given the restrictions? Or can they go ahead with it?

I got a passport in 2 days, filled out the online application on the Thursday morning, it came in the post on the Saturday, just last week.
The photos I got done in a local print place, the print place sent me a link to photo to download, I upload It to the passport application.
I was frankly amazed how unhassled and quick the whole thing was.