James Cox
There are delays of up to eight weeks for passport applications to be processed, with up to 172,000 people currently waiting on their applications.
The Department of Foreign Affairs said the Passport Service is dealing with a very high volume of applications.
Over one million passports have been issued since the beginning of 2021 - including over 400,000 this year.
The president of the Irish Travel Agents Association, Paul Hackett, said international travel still hasn't reached pre-pandemic levels.
"We're in and round 75 per cent to 80 per cent for January, and the first half of February we're doing pretty well heading back to 80 per cent. Then the Ukraine crisis hit and what this has done, not so much in terms of the geographic issue of Ukraine, it's more the consequential issues around the cost of living and inflation increases, energy price increases."
"All of those areas have impacted on consumer confidence and knocked that back."
