Irish dual citizens living abroad have complained of long delays for passports, believing UK rule changes brought in earlier this year have resulted in an influx of applications and subsequent backlogs.
Since February, all Irish or UK citizens must have a valid UK or Irish passport or a “certificate of entitlement” when travelling to the UK, regardless of dual citizenship.
The certificate of entitlement, however, is a more expensive option at about €680.
Before the change, Irish or British dual citizens in countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US could travel to the UK using their foreign passport.
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Since the new rules came into effect, Irish dual citizens living abroad hoping to travel to the UK this summer have complained of lengthy waits for passport applications.
Deborah Cunningham, a 46-year-old originally from Blarney, Co Cork, applied for her daughter’s first Irish passport in February, in advance of a family trip to the UK for a wedding in July.
Despite an estimated completion date of April 15th, Cunningham, who lives in Perth and has Australian citizenship, said there has been no progress in her application.
“You can tell it’s not been looked at,” she said, adding that a witness for her daughter’s application, required for first-time applications, had not yet been contacted as of Friday.
“It’s just in a big pile, it’s going nowhere.”
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Online groups for Irish expats, particularly those living in Australia, have been inundated with posts regarding delayed passport applications, some of whom claimed they were told by the Passport Office of a “surge in global applications” when querying the delays.
Some specified they applied for their Irish passport due to the change in UK rules.
“It’s been a massive thing here in Australia,” Cunningham said. “People are so angry. The Brits are very angry about it,” she said, adding they could previously “travel back and forth no problem”.
Several, including Cunningham, described difficulty in contacting the Passport Office, while Irish consular offices in Australia are simply “too busy to take phone calls”, she said.
“I think they’re just getting bombarded,” she said.
The delays are causing “stress” and “anxiety” ahead of what is a popular time to travel to the UK and Ireland from Australia, she said.
“They need to acknowledge that there is a problem. I’m seeing people cancelling holidays and everything,” she said.
After The Irish Times queried her case, Cunningham subsequently received notification that her daughter’s passport was being printed.
The Department of Foreign Affairs said it is currently processing a “high volume” of passport applications, though it said this was “in line with our projections for this time of year”.
Noting that the new UK rule changes were introduced just over two months ago, a spokesperson for the department said it will “take a number of months for any potential impact of these measures to be determined”.
