The number of people waiting for their passport application to be processed has reached 172,000.
The Passport Service has issued over 400,000 so far this year, compared to only 634,000 in all of last year.
There's a delay of 30 working days if you apply for your first passport online - or eight weeks if you apply by post.
The president of the Irish Travel Agents Association, Paul Hackett, says people are very eager to travel after the pandemic.
"There's very substantial demand, there's pent up demand.
"People have savings for holidays, and there's great supply of flights and accommodation so people are travelling.
"In real terms our annoyance to some extent is that the passport office weren't prepared for this, but the recovery has come very fast in terms of travel.
"To some extent, they're in the same boat as the rest of us as employers, in terms of getting enough staff into their facilities."
