People working as contact-tracers during the pandemic are to be transferred to processing passport applications.
The Irish Independent is reporting that contact tracers working from HSE offices in Limerick will now switch to passport duties with the Department of Foreign Affairs.
195,000 people sent in passport requests last month, with a 50 to 60% increase in the volumes of applications reported since Covid-related travel restrictions were lifted.
Travel journalist Eoghan Corry says straightforward renewal applications are being processed quickly:
"The online application system is running very smoothly. Anything complicated and complicated can mean children, complicated can mean someone who's allowed their passport to expire by more than five years, there's a few of them since COVID, like the people who travel every three years or so, complicated means all of that paperwork that comes with a first time passport."
