May is traditionally the busiest month for applications.
The number of people waiting for their passport application to be processed has reached 172,000.
The Passport Service has issued over 400,000 passports so far this year.
That's compared to only 634,000 in all of last year.
There's a delay of 30 working days if you apply for your first passport online.
That delay could be anything up to eight weeks if you apply by post.
Those waiting on passports to travel this summer have been hit with delays for a number of reasons, according to travel expert @eoghancorry - https://t.co/96cr3TnSR2
— Jack Quann (@jqbilbao) May 3, 2022
President of the Irish Travel Agents Association, Paul Hackett, says people are very eager to travel after the pandemic.
"There's very substantial demand like there's pent up demand, people have savings for holidays."
"There's a great supply of flights and accommodation so people are travelling."
"They're in the same boat as the rest of us, as employers, in terms of the difficulty of getting enough staff into their facilities."
However, the number of flights and those travelling internationally has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels.
