Number of Mayo people awaiting passports revealed

A total of 1,000 Mayo applications for passports are in the online system of the Irish Passport Service, it has been revealed.

Of those, 800 are in respect of renewals and 200 are from first time applicants.

There are also a further 1,800 paper-based applications in the system - but a county-by-county breakdown is not available.

At present there are approximately 90,000 passport applications awaiting processing, 36,000 of which are for overseas residents.

The county with the longest waiting list is Dublin with 17,100 with Antrim second on 4,900 and Cork third with 4,700.

Galway has 2,300, Sligo 500, Roscommon 500 and Leitrim 300.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney, said the Passport Service is confident, taking into account measures to ensure a safe workplace, that the backlog can be cleared in six to eight weeks.