Bad timing for a strike!

Yesterday morning I woke up at 6.30 am and had a feeling I needed to call the embassy and find out how my passport application was going. It should have taken 4(ish) weeks, and it had already been that long. I was getting excited for my trip and was a little anxious that I didn't have a passport in my grubby little hands yet!

So, I got up, left them a voicemail and waited for my call back (I hate that they don't have people answering calls and that I always have to leave a message).

Anyway, about 2.15pm they called back and said that my passport was being held up in the backlog because of strike action taking place in Dublin.

• Firstly I didn't know my passport was being processed in Dublin
• Secondly - who was striking? What for? and why now?

Grrr - the lady on the phone was NOT the most helpful person I've ever talked to and she quickly got off the phone after mentioning something about a temporary passport.

Hummm.... I was bummed. Nope, I was beyond bummed - I was heart broken. I have so looked forward to this trip, it's been entirely too long since I last saw most of my family and friends. I couldn't imagine postponing or cancelling at this stage.

After doing a LOT of research and calling several different official offices for advice and then piecing it together I put another call into the consulate in San Fran. This time I just left my name and phone number and said I needed advice on how to get back to Ireland. I hoped that by not mentioning I had a passport question I might get a different person call me back.

A little before 10am a lovely helpful lady called me back. She asked me lots of questions about my situation, dates of travel, immigration status etc and she said her best advice to me would be to wait. She said they get passports every Monday and that I should call on Tuesday 20th if I haven't received my passport before then. They can check if it came in the day before and if not I could get a temporary passport issued. They can do them there in the consulate office and mail them the same day they receive payment. It 'should' give me enough time to get it before travelling. I asked her if it would be safer to go ahead and order it now but she said they only issue them for last minute or emergency scenarios, so they would have to wait til the w/c 19th April anyway.

Irish passports have a huge backlog right now and they are expecting approximately a 12+ week delay on passports going through the Dublin office...

So we wait - it means we have to wait til the very last minute, but we wait and hope...

I'm going to still try and get everything done that we need to, and hope and pray that everything gets sorted out in time. I would hate to spend even more money on this passport (since I'm cheap) but if we have to then we will.