Many stressed parents say they are waiting months for their child’s first passport

Has this happened to you?

A couple of years ago I had applied for my daughter's first passport before we headed away on a trip. Now if you've ever gone through the process of applying for your child's first passport then you'll know how stressful it can be. There's referee signatures to get, police stamps to get, trying to get a baby to hold still for their passport photo etc... Then after all that you prepare yourself for a long wait because the first passport takes time and in my case, like I wrote, I ended up having to get in contact with the passport office because it was taken much longer than expected. Now due to Covid (and most likely Brexit too) parents are saying they are waiting months for their child's first passport, with some even saying they've been waiting since last year. All over parenting travel forums I'm seeing post after post regarding passports for children and how much of a delay is on them. The problem in particular seems to lie with first passport applications. One mum from Meath says that she is emotionally drained, stressed and exhausted trying to find out when she will receive her child's passport that she applied for six months ago. The stressed mum says she needs the passport so she can return home to Slovakia so her family can meet her child;

"I applied on 23rd April but had to apply again because when the passport office rang the Garda station, Jake’s passport wasn’t in their logbook so I had to re do it all over again but because I sent all of the documents to the passport office, my passport, my husband’s passport and Jake’s birth certificate I couldn’t apply again. I rang the Garda station and they told me that they did have it in their logbook and then they told me to ring the passport office, but I couldn’t get them, I was ringing them for weeks every single day."

From the advice that I have seen online many parents have suggested contacting the passport office through their Twitter as that seems to be the quickest way to get through to them. Their Twitter account is @PassportIRL but you can also contact them from 9am – 4.30pm, Monday to Friday at +353 1 671 1633.