Royal Mail branded a ‘shambles’

A young Derry woman has been left “majorly out of pocket” due to the “shambles” surrounding her Irish passport application.

As a result, Georgie O’Hagan has cautioned other first-time applicants about using the Post Office’s passport postal service and has called for an Irish Passport Office to be opened in the North.

In October, 2024, Ms O’Hagan booked and paid for a holiday to Amsterdam with her girlfriend and two other friends. They were due to go away next month – March 2025. 

At the same time, she applied for her passport at the main post office here in the city.

According to Ms O’Hagan, the Post Office staff member behind the counter checked she had included all of the correct documentation in her application pack; they then issued a postal order for the amount of the application. 

She added: “After a few weeks, I became concerned when my passport never arrived. I was going back and forth between the Post Office and Royal Mail trying in vain to get any information at all on where it might be. 

“Eventually I was told to claim back the money I had spent on the postal order I had sent with my passport application. My supporting documents were returned to me but no passport. 

“Worryingly, the passport application documents belonging to a person in County Derry were also sent to me along with my own returned documents; I then had to contact that person regarding that situation. 

“All of this makes no sense to me, especially as on Royal Mail tracking, it states my application pack went from Belfast to Dublin, and then for some reason known only to Royal Mail and An Post, it ended up in London at the Heathrow facility, where it has been ever since,” said Ms O’Hagan.

Unable to travel abroad without her passport, Ms O’Hagan, has also told her her air carrier, EasyJet, will not refund the cost of her holiday. 

“I have lost the money for my passport and the money for the holiday. On top of that, I now have to restart a whole new passport application process,” she said.

“I am very disappointed at how this has all been handled and I am going to be missing out on a holiday I was so excited for.”

In January, Foyle MP, Colum Eastwood, contacted Royal Mail regarding Ms O’Hagan’s missing passport. 

In a response from the company’s senior public affairs manager, he was told the “International Tracked item posted to Ireland” was not at its Heathrow Worldwide Distribution Centre, as Ms O’Hagan’s online tracking had led her to believe. 

He added: “[The passport application] originally posted in Belfast was dispatched to Dublin within a Belfast dispatch. As such, no customs declaration was required. 

“The tracking information confirms that the item arrived at the Dublin Mail Centre in Ireland on October 24.  It remained with An Post at their [sic] Dublin Mail Centre until November 6, when it was returned to Royal Mail. 

“Unfortunately, despite our review of the tracking enquiry system on www.anpost.com, no clear tracking scan has been noted for why the item could not be delivered. 

“For undeliverable or loose items within the Royal Mail network, these are forwarded to the National Return Centre (NRC) in Belfast, where efforts are made to return them to the sender. However, passports are not retained at the NRC; they are instead forwarded directly to the relevant embassy,” he said.

The public affairs manager confirmed Royal Mail did not maintain “records of passports that are sent to embassies”.

He recommended Ms O’Hagan should contact the Irish Embassy to confirm whether her passport has been received there.

Georgie O’Hagan described the situation between the Post Office, Royal Mail and An Post as “bizarre”.

She added: “The response Colum Eastwood got from Royal Mail is even more bizarre. 

“How can anyone trust the Post Office now in the town with sending Irish passport applications up to Dublin?”