THE need for a passport office in the north was highlighted yet again this week. Applicants living in the six counties were informed that the Irish Passport Office has suspended posting out passports to them, citing the Royal Mail postal strike.
I have been campaigning for many years now on the need for a passport office to be based in the north. It is simply common sense. Huge portions of the population in the north are proud holders of Irish passports. They need support when they are first time applicants, when applying for renewals or when they require replacement documents. They should be able to do so in their nearby community.
The current suspension of posting passports to citizens in the north will cause totally unnecessary and avoidable stress and inconvenience to large numbers of people. Those who need a passport urgently to travel for holidays or work, simply cannot wait. They will be forced to travel to Dublin to collect their passport in person.
This is an unfair burden at the best of times, requiring people to take time off work and make childcare arrangements, before embarking on a journey that can take several hours depending on where they live. This is particularly shocking in the middle of a cost of living crisis, when people are already hard-pressed financially and are now expected to fork out for fuel or missed wages for time off work, all due to a service that they have already paid for.
If there was a passport office in the north, people there would have an accessible office nearby and convenient to them. They would be saved both the disruption and additional costs caused by the current unfair arrangements.
This latest blow to northern applicants comes on the back of another record-breaking year in which just under 128,000 of passport applications (50,000 of which were first time applications) came from the north. Last year in the north more people applied for an Irish passport than a British one. It is clear that there is huge demand and appetite for this. A passport office in the north just makes sense.
Year after year, especially following Brexit, we have seen record numbers of people in the north applying for Irish passports. Having a passport office here would provide crucial resources to enable the system to cut wait times and increase the quality of service for applicants. It would also provide additional jobs locally.
It is increasingly clear that having a passport office in the north is a necessity. The Irish government needs to stop dragging its heels on this issue and wake up to reality. It is time to end the delay and to start planning to open an office soon.
Sinn Féin is committed to getting progress on this issue. I will be writing to the incoming Foreign Affairs Minister, Tánaiste Micheál Martin, to ensure that he is made aware of the importance of this and requesting an urgent update. I will again be raising this campaign in the Seanad and would call on the government to engage positively, prepare prudently and deliver for citizens.
:: Niall Ó Donnghaile is a Sinn Féin senator.
