Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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266. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if he will address a matter regarding the case of a person (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36432/21]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Passport Service has been in direct contact with the person referred to in the Deputy's question.

The Passport Service commenced the scaling up of operations on 4 May 2021 in line with the phased easing of restrictions set out in “COVID-19 Resilience and Recovery 2021 – The Plan Ahead”.

The Service has been focused since then on four priority areas:

- Clearing the COVID-19 backlog of 89,000 passport applications.

- Processing all adult renewal applications (including new applications) within 10 working days.

- Processing urgent and emergency applications.

- Providing of customer services through phone and WebChat.

The Passport Service has now commenced the processing of all other applications received since 4 May.

First-time applications require additional security measures including robust identity verification and entitlement checking and, as a result, take longer to process than straight forward renewal applications.

Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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267. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if he will address a matter regarding the case of a person (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36435/21]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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As the processing of Canadian visas is solely a matter for the Government of Canada, I regret that I am not in a position to advise on this specific case. My advice to those seeking, or in the process of acquiring, a Canadian visa is to engage directly with the Canadian immigration authorities and with officials at Canada’s Visa Application Centre in Dublin.

Ireland is deeply committed to supporting exchanges between Ireland and Canada at every level. Our relations with Canada are rich and flourishing on the back of our extraordinary social, cultural and historic links. Such exchanges are vital to our economic relationships, and for building people-to-people connections between Ireland and Canada. We are particularly keen that current restrictions to international travel will not negatively impact the future of our visitor exchange programmes with Canada, including the Working Holiday programme.

My Department has a very strong and positive working relationship with the Embassy of Canada in Dublin, and was delighted recently to welcome Canada’s new Ambassador to Ireland, Nancy Smyth. We will continue to maintain regular contact with the Embassy, and with Global Affairs Canada via our Embassy in Ottawa, including with regard to the easing of travel restrictions between our two countries.