I agree that customers need to take greater care. But not all the errors are the exclusive fault of the applicants.
Moreover, some errors are compounded by the poor systems in the Passport Office.
A Garda witness error in my application was not notified to me for months and when I eventually got through to them over the phone (a near impossible task) to establish the cause of the delay, it was only then that the error was identified to me. The online tracking system didn’t identify the error and simply stated for months that my application was “being processed”. I should have received an error notification email when it was first identified but alas, I didn’t.
Having rectified that error, the submitted photo - which had been approved by their online system - turned out to be unacceptable as their own system cropped the top of the photo such as to render it unacceptable.
I’m now awaiting a resubmission link to be emailed to me for nearly two weeks, despite being advised that I could expect it within 5 working days.
It looks like we will have to travel to Dublin from the west and make an emergency travel appointment to be sure we can travel abroad during the summer. The application was first submitted on 4 January.