Garda shortages in rural stations are causing holiday hell for families whose passport applications are stuck in limbo.

Galway County Councillor Shelley Herterich Quinn (FF) said a number of local families have missed their holiday abroad because of delays in issuing passports to infants or first-time applicants.

Child and first-time applications for passports need to be verified by An Garda Síochána. But she claimed that staff shortages in Garda stations, particularly rural ones, meant that passport applications could not be signed off on.

One young mother who contacted the Tribune said she has been waiting months for the Passport Office to issue a passport for her baby.

She said the Passport Office blamed the delay on difficulties contacting Gardaí at Galway Garda Station to verify she was the legal guardian of the child.

Describing it as a ‘fiasco’, Cllr Herterich Quinn said many parents were in a similar situation and had missed their holiday over it. She has written to the Minister of Foreign Affairs about the issue.

“The devastation to families who had booked holidays abroad for the first time in three years, with seemingly ample time to have their passports issued, but for whatever reason, the passport never arrived. Thousands of Euros lost. Hundreds disappointed. We’ve had holidays missed, without compensation,” she said.

Cllr Herterich Quinn blamed a lack of Garda resources in some cases.

“Due to current constraints in An Garda Síochána, many Garda Stations are unmanned for hours and even days at a time, particularly in rural Ireland.  Therefore it is very difficult for applicants to get their applications verified in the first instance,” she said.

The Passport Office officials must then verify the application with the Garda Station where the application form was stamped. And the only record of the application is a handwritten entry in a ledger at the station. But because some stations are not manned, the calls from the Passport Office are diverted to other stations.

“These stations cannot verify the application. If the appropriate station cannot be reached after one or two attempts, the application does not proceed and indeed a new application may have to be made,” she said.

Cllr Herterich Quinn called on the Department of Foreign Affairs to work with Gardaí and Passport Office to implement an electronic method of verifying passport applications, using existing or a new online portal.

“The implementation of this electronic method of verification would negate the need for the Garda Station to verify the application as it would already be verified electronically, using the Garda’s personal identification number, via the ‘Passport Application Verification Portal’ between An Garda Síochána and the Passport Office,” she said.