DELAYS in Irish passport applications following the recent surge in British applicants has left Irish Post readers outraged.
Earlier this week The Irish Post reported that applications through the Irish Embassy’s Cromwell Road office in London could now take up to seven weeks to process rather than six.
Readers have since taken to social media to share their frustration with the passport service in London, with some claiming that they had waited months rather than weeks for their application to be processed.
We take a look at some of the comments below:
Our readers' passport woes...
“Why does it take so frickin long. Applied 18/03/16, just tracked it and it's at stage one of six stages. Pain in the ass! The passport is for my sister – I checked and I’ve had no reply to a query email I sent yesterday.” (Deirdre P Ni Bhraonain)
“My wife had to wait for ten weeks. Only for sending them an email to hurry things along, we would probably still be waiting now. Luckily we had not booked up to go away, I hate to think what would have happened if we did. It only took a week to process my British Passport.” (Patrick O’Connor, Wolverhampton)
“Waited five months! [It] arrived last week!” (Tricia Conlon, Glasgow)
“I applied 14th March via London and it’s predicted I should get [it by] 22nd April. There's no fast track service via London which is crazy. [The] Only fast track services in UK [are] from Glasgow and Liverpool. Furthermore I'm tracking [the] progress of mine and it's saying stage one of six. Very frustrating.” (Winnie Dowling, Donegal)
“I applied for one. Five weeks and they haven't cashed [the] cheque or even started to process it yet.” (Dorothy Lee, Bradford)
“I lost a holiday because my passport arrived two days late. I was fuming and they wouldn't bend or rush it through any quicker. It took six weeks. I lost nearly a thousand pounds on the holiday and also incurred expenses with telephone calls to Dublin and the London Embassies. I'm still fuming about it to be honest.” (Kay Ohanlon, Birmingham)
Some of the more positive experiences...
“Mum applied for a new Irish passport via [the] London Embassy in January and it was back in ten days not seven weeks. Passport express is the best way to get it back quick.” (Carol Quinn Pollitt, Merseyside)
“I got mine in two weeks last year.” (Róisín Ní Maol Fábhail)
