Passport concerns

His call comes after working on behalf of a number of people whose passports had run out of date close to the departure which subsequently caused disruption to their holiday plans.

Cllr McLaughlin said: “I would appeal to anyone planning to go away on holidays over the next few weeks to check that their passport is valid. Our constituency office has been working on behalf of a number of people in north Antrim who ran into difficulties after they discovered that their passports were out of date. This is the busiest time of the year for passport renewals and it can take several weeks to get passport issues resolved.

“People may have to end up going to Dublin with documentation to ensure that they get their passport in time to travel and there may be occasions that people will simply lose out on their holiday as there is no time to process their passport applications,” said the councillor.