First Passport Application Mystery

[human_ie]

Hi everyone, desperately need your advice on the following mystery.

I’ve submitted the first time passport application for my child, and successfully received the Irish passport recently. But, to my surprise, the foreign passport was not in the letter with the rest of the supporting documents (i.e. birth and naturalisation certificates) which arrived safely.

I reached out to the passport office via the webchat, and they told me that I never submitted the foreign passport as a part of the application (which simply isn’t true!). I said that technically couldn’t be the case because this is an essential requirement for the 1st time applicants. The reply was that “it’s not when there’s no passport available”, but again, I would need to provide a sworn affidavit in that case, which I didn’t.

Bottom line, I did send the passport, I see the acknowledgment of all documents received in the tracker, the application was super smooth with no follow up questions asked at any stage. And now they say I never provided it as per their system records.

I wrote separately over an email and got the same type of a reply (i.e. that they never received it as per their system records).

Did anyone have similar experience? How to escalate this? There clearly must be something strange going on, my understanding they would technically be unable to proceed with the passport issuance without either the foreign passport or an affidavit, so even if they don’t trust my word, their own procedures speak for themselves.

I’d appreciate any advice!

[nisi]

Sounds like they've lost it. Declare it lost with the other country your child holds citizenship for and apply for a new one from them? At least your child isn't without a passport, they have their Irish one now

It sounds like you've tried all possible avenues to get it back, best to just accept it's gone and apply for a replacement.

[corky100]

On most of my dealings with webchat, they have been extremely uniformed - they've told me blatantly incorrect info twice now. I honestly don't think they undergo any training.

It's not fair when people, for example, have to send their Irish passports to renew their British or get a driving license, and they go awry, or get posted back normal post, to get lost. And the same applies the other way round.

Phone them up, very politely ask again and state that you will have to report to the issuing countries embassy (if that applies) / Passport Office that the Irish Passport Office.......lost your passport. I assume you use tracked post.

[human_ie]

Thanks for your advice here! To keep this updated for those curious about where it goes. I reached out to them over the webchat again (managed to speak to the same guy), he told they’ve double checked and didn’t find anything. I asked him to check if maybe the passport scan was misclassified in their system, he said it’s not.

He advised to fill in a formal complaint form, which I did on Friday. He said they reply pretty fast. I wrote a strongly worded letter, citing that they either have/had the passport, or they essentially breached security & verification protocols when issuing the Irish one (which is a pretty serious thing if you think about that). I also noted that the very fact of receiving an incomplete package of mandatory documents must have triggered a notification and put the application on hold.

Let’s see what they say. Will keep you posted