The impending Brexit seems to be driving demand.
Post offices all over Northern Ireland are reporting to have low, or in some cases, zero, supplies of Irish passports.
Belfast’s central post office ran out of Irish passport application forms on Friday 25 January, with the branch manager telling BBC News that the reason for it is “high demand, especially in the last few weeks, means there is a stock and delivery issue”.
Some people attempting to get a form have taken to Twitter to voice their concerns that there does not seem to be a rush to get the forms replaced:
https://twitter.com/Shiny_28/status/1089877453923852289
The branch manager of Bangor Post Office in north County Down voiced similar concerns, saying that demand in the last few weeks has been massive: “It is Brexit, people don’t know what is happening and they want to be prepared.”
Almost 200,000 Irish passport applications were received from the UK in 2018 alone and the number of UK applications has more than doubled since Britain voted to leave the EU.
Additionally, the Irish Passport Service has said it will issue more forms to the post offices across the country that have started to run out.
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