More than €13 million has been spent on a major upgrade of technology and "customer service improvements" for the passport service in the past five years.
This includes €4.3 million on the online application system, which Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney said has been "transformative for the customer, delivering shorter turnaround times and lower rejection rates over traditional paper based channels"
The figures were provided by the minister in response to a Parliamentary Question from Social Democrats co-leader Catherine Murphy.
She said a lot of the investment has been worthwhile, but that some aspects require further examination.
"If it is the case that you have invested in IT and one of the problems with that IT is that you take a photo of a child which is subsequently rejected by a human eye, then you have to ask is the technology up to scratch?," she asked.
The Public Accounts Committee has now agreed to question representatives from the Department of Foreign Affairs on passport delays.
They are expected to appear at the PAC before the Dáil breaks for summer.
Ms Murphy said witnesses will be asked about the Passport Service Reform Programme, which was established in 2016 and has cost €13.4 since.
"If we are going to continue to invest in this service, we have to ensure that this investment is robust," she said.
According to the figures provided by the department, some €2m has been spent on passport issuing and processing systems; €1.2m on mailing machines; €1.4 on fraud prevention enhancements and €717,000 on customer services.
Minister Coveney said the measures have ensured that the passport service "can provide a more efficient service despite the unprecedented increase in the level of demand."
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
The Tánaiste has encouraged people to apply online for passports if they can, saying a "huge amount of work" is being done to improve the situation.
Leo Varadkar said the Government acknowledges "that we are facing a lot of delays when it comes to providing passports for people."
"A huge amount of work is being done to improve the situation," he said.
"The Passport Office will have printed more passports this year so far than all of last year - we're almost at that point.
"There has been a big increase in staff working in the Passport Office, that's going to increase further."
He added: "We're looking at the possibility of an additional Passport Office in the west of the country that will help people out as well.
"And very strongly encouraging people to apply online if they can because online renewals in particular are being done really quickly.
"They're being done in less than a week in a vast majority of cases. Where we are running into real difficulties is around the paper applications.
"Please check your passport now, don't wait to find out at the last minute that it is out of date."
Garda Commissioner urged to meet passport officials
Meanwhile, the Garda Commissioner Drew Harris has been urged to meet officials from the passport office in an effort to speed up the application process.
First time applicants, mainly for children, require a Garda witness, which must in turn be verified by the passport office.
But TDs have said that in some cases the passport office has been unable to make contact with a Garda station or it may not be open.
Its understood there has been engagement with An Garda Síochána and the passport service in recent days.
The Chairman of the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs, Fine Gael TD Charlie Flanagan, said a greater level of co-ordination is needed.
He said: "Senior Garda figures, including the Garda Commissioner, should get around the table with the passport office and agree a greater level of coordination between the two."
Mr Flanagan said his Committee hopes to visit the passport office in an effort to explore solutions to the latest delays.
Families missing holidays due to passport delays - TD
Earlier, a Fine Gael TD has said that the passport service is not fit for purpose, calling for more offices to open and for embassy staff to be redeployed to help out with the issue.
Mayo TD Michael Ring said that his office staff are spending 60% of their time dealing with passport issues every day, describing the situation as "outrageous".
Families are missing their holidays and getting no answer from the office when they call "one hundred times plus," he said.
The Department of Foreign Affairs said it is currently printing and issuing more than 5,000 passports per day, adding that it is experiencing unprecedented demand. It said that it has issued around 500,000 passports so far this year.
Earlier this week, An Post renamed its passport application service from Passport Express to Post Passport.
The change came following complaints that the name was misleading.
Mr Ring was critical of the system in which gardaí have to verify details for an application, saying that in rural Ireland and across the country, garda stations are not always manned and that if there are errors or delays relating to gardaí, that is not the problem of the passport applicant and so they should not be blamed.
"Something has to be done, it's not good enough," he said, adding that taxpayers should be entitled to get passports at a reasonable time.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
Mr Ring also suggested that various embassies of countries he has "never heard of" deploy their staff to help with passports.
1.75m applications expected this year
Fianna Fáil TD for Dublin Bay South Jim O'Callaghan said he believes there should be a passport office in Belfast to help speed up the process.
He said that he expects there to be 1.75 million applications for passports overall this year and described this demand as "unprecedented".
Speaking on RTE's Today with Claire Byrne, Mr O'Callaghan said: "There's huge demand coming from Northern Ireland. If you look at the top six counties in the 32 counties that are looking for passports, four of them are in Northern Ireland."
Sinn Féin TD for Longford-Westmeath Sorca Clarke said that her party has been calling for this measure and the surge in demand from Northern Ireland is due to Brexit.
"That's not to do with Covid. That's actually on the back of Brexit and it is why we have been asking for an additional passport office in the North to take on board those additional applications," she said.
Earlier this week, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said that processing and issuing of passports "remains a major issue for first time applicants".
Speaking at a Fine Gael parliamentary party meeting, Leo Varadkar said: "If 40% of passport application forms have been filled out incorrectly or are incomplete, it is an issue with the forms and not the applicants."
The meeting heard from several Fine Gael TDs and senators about the experiences of their constituents, with Mr Varadkar describing it as a "very serious issue".
'I wish I had applied for a British one'
Meanwhile, an Irish woman living in Scotland who applied for an Irish passport for her son has said she wishes she had applied for a British one instead, having not received the document months after applying for it.
Tipperary native Catherine Lynas was due to go on her summer holiday on Wednesday, but could not travel, since her son Julian's passport was not sent, despite the application being lodged in February.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Ms Lynas said she wanted her son to have an Irish passport so he could have a connection to Ireland.
"I’m proud to be an Irish citizen and I want my son to have that connection as well, but now I really wish that I would have just got a British one," she said.
Ms Lynas said her phone stopped logging how many times she was calling the passport office, but she thinks she must have called around 400 times. She added that on two occasions she was hung up on.
"It's just so frustrating. It's a right as citizens for us to be able to access a passport so we can travel freely," Ms Lynas said.
"If I could contact them and say to stop the application, I would stop it and get a British one. I just feel sickened.
"Even my next one. I never thought I would hear myself say it, but I'd be tempted to get a British one, because I just feel so let down by the whole service."
