The head of the Passport Service has revealed some tips to help people move their applications along.
May generally is the month with the most applications lodged - followed by April and June.
While the number of applications for Irish passports hit its highest ever number in January.
Meanwhile, more people applied for an Irish passport over a British one in Northern Ireland for the first time ever in 2020.
This year is expected to see around 1.7 million passport applications submitted in Ireland.
Siobhan Byrne is director of the service in the Department of Foreign Affairs.
She told The Hard Shoulder people should be aware of a few aspects.
"One thing that people get a little bit confused on is that when they apply for a passport online, that wouldn't be when the processing timeline starts.
"It doesn't start until they actually send in the documents.
"And sometimes that can take weeks, or even months, in some occasions for people to send the documents into us.
"So the clock really only starts ticking when we receive the documentation.
"And other times there can be issues with the documentation that's received, and so we may have to go back to the applicant to get certain things clarified or ask for more documentation."
'Great progress'
She says turnaround times for additional documentation requests have been reduced.
"We've made great progress there, because a couple of months ago that would have taken eight weeks - but we've now reduced that turnaround to three weeks".
And she says paper applications generally will take longer than those done digitally.
"Paper applications do take longer to process - it doesn't really matter whether it's a renewal application or a first-time application.
"They all get processed in exactly the same way, whereas with the online system there's a greater efficiency certainly for the renewals than there is for the first-timers.
"It is taking a number of weeks longer to do those applications".
The Passport Office is seen on Dublin's Molesworth Street in July 2011. Picture by: kp / Alamy Stock Photo'High demand'
Siobhan says they are seeing an uptake in demand.
"We are having a very, very busy year for passports this year - and that's directly as a result of limited travel for the last couple of years.
"People are travelling this year, and we're certainly seeing a high demand for passports."
She says turnaround times are on track for passport renewals.
That is two weeks for an adult passport renewal and three weeks for child renewals.
But she admits first-time applications are taking longer.
"Our first-time applications do take longer because they're a lot more complex to process.
"But we've brought the turnaround time for those down from eight weeks - which it was at the beginning of March - and it is now at six weeks.
"And we're making very good progress with those applications."
