Timeline for delivery of Cork's new passport office yet to be established 

A procurement process for the construction of a new passport office in Cork is under way, but there is still no timeline for the facility’s completion.

The new office will be at Navigation Square on Albert Quay, about 500m from the current South Mall office, with room for 140 staff.

In July of 2025, Tánaiste Simon Harris, then the minister for foreign affairs, said it was intended that a new passport office would be fully operational on Albert Quay by autumn of this year.

In February, a spokesperson for the department said it was expecting the new office to open “in Q4 2026”.

This summer, it emerged that the project was set to be a year later again, with construction and fit-out works expected to be completed in in second quarter of 2027, with additional installations likely lasting until at least the year’s end.

Fine Gael TD John Paul O’Shea recently put a parliamentary question to the government seeking a progress update on the office.

Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, Kevin ‘Boxer’ Moran, said that the Office of Public Works is working on the new office for the passport service in Cork, in conjunction with the Department of Foreign Affairs.

He told Mr O’Shea: “The procurement process for the construction works is underway with an evaluation process in progress.

“Once the construction contract is awarded, the anticipated timeline for delivery can be established.”