Could Donegal be set to get its own passport office?

A Donegal councillor is proposing that the former Bundoran Town Council offices be used as a decentralised, ancillary passport office.

Cllr Michael McMahon (SF) raised the matter at the February meeting of the Municipal District (MD) of Donegal on Tuesday.

He said: “My proposal is to write to the department offering them a state of the art premises that is ready to go.”
The proposal was seconded by his party colleague Cllr Noel Jordan.

Cllr McMahon told fellow councillors: “The passport office is overloaded with 135,000 passport applications.

“There are a lot of people wanting to get their passports renewed.

“There are quite a few applications coming in from the six counties too, which I am glad to see.”

He said that Donegal had a state of the art office that had been lying empty for more than 10 years, namely the offices of the now defunct Bundoran Town Council.

“There was a lot of talk in the past about decentralisation and I think we should be looking at that again to help deal with the passport backlog,” said Cllr McMahon.

“We could take in Donegal, Derry, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Leitrim, Sligo and Mayo from the passport office.”

The councillor said it was important that people would be able to make contact with the office.

“The passport office are a law unto themselves at the moment,” he said.

“They only work five days when they should work seven days.

“You have people who want to go and see their families abroad and they are looking to councillors and TDs to follow up their passport applications. 

“When you try to call the office you can’t get speaking to anyone, you get left on hold listening to this jungle music or whatever it is.”

Cllr McMahon stressed that it would be a good use of the Bundoran Town Council office that would also be of benefit to the wider region.