A former Mayor of Newry Mourne and Down Council has said she has had to chase up an Irish passport application for her young daughter for over two years.
Naomi Bailie-Doran and her family missed out on a surprise holiday in January due to the delay.
Naomi has also been battling to recover from and live with an acquired brain injury during that process and told Belfast Live it was "emotionally exhausting".
Read more: Belfast mum on 'nightmare' passport wait as family faces missing dream holiday to Spain
Naomi contracted bacterial meningitis in 2016 and from that, suffered complications which led to a stroke and several brain surgeries.
She was hospitalised for four months and the severity of her condition meant she was unable to walk or talk and had to focus totally on rehabilitation.
"I fought death and this at times has felt as challenging as that in a different way," she said.
"I have to write things down to remember when things were sent, what witness statements were where and everything.
"Even logistically, going to the Post Office and here and there, you need to be a well person to do it.
"To have to endure all this while I've been recovering has been a real, real challenge."
The family were unable to travel or go on holiday while Naomi dedicated her efforts to recovery and recuperation.
It was 2020 before she and her family felt "emotionally and physically well enough" to think about a holiday and with that in mind, Naomi put in a first time Irish passport application for Niadh, then aged four.
"We were really excited for it," she said.
"We were thinking going into that new year, we'll make plans and we'll do this and do that."
Coronavirus would have put a halt to any plans for travel, but the application was sent off in January 2020 before travel was shut down.
The tracking process gave an indicated completion and return timeframe of June, but having heard nothing by then, Naomi then contacted the passport office.
By July, Naomi was ringing the office trying to get answers and sought help from politicians as well.
She told Belfast Live that she had eventually been able to find out that her daughter's application had actually been cancelled.
"I rang the passport office and they told me that it had timed out in the system and had been cancelled," she said.
"They said I would have to reapply, even though we'd done everything they had asked us to do."
Naomi appealed the decision, which took a further two months, but even then she was only refunded her application fee in September and was still without a passport for Niadh.
The stress and hassle of the process and the impact of coronavirus on travel meant Naomi didn't reapply until September 2021.
Again, the estimated due month of November passed, with the date being bumped back to December, and she was then told the application had again been cancelled.
Naomi had kept the problems with Niadh's passport application from her husband as she didn't want him worrying about the efforts she was putting in, given she lives with chronic tiredness as a result of her brain injury.
Unfortunately, her husband had booked the family a surprise ski holiday as a Christmas present, to meet up with friends and family in January of this year.
It all meant Naomi and her family were down about £2,500 and missed out on that surprise holiday.
They are now waiting on a third application to see if it goes through, having sent it in January of this year.
The distraught mum has lodged complaints through the passport office, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Travel and the Ombudsman Office in the Republic of Ireland.
"I received an email this morning from the Ombudsman's Office saying that the application we made in January has been posted yesterday.
"So hopefully we might have the passport within the next few days."
Naomi said it has been horrendous to try and manage the passport application process alongside trying to continue her rehabilitation.
"It's just been dreadful," she said.
"The funny thing in all of this is both my husband and I have Irish passports and renewed them this year and they both came back within two weeks.
"So those are being turned out really quickly, but I just don't know what is happening with the new applications.
"I don't know what the answer is, but there needs to be some sort of fundamental change.
"The process in place needs to change, there's lots of things happening that are just wrong and just shouldn't be happening."
The Irish Department for Foreign Affairs and Travel has been contacted for comment.
Read more: Irish passport panic for NI family after three month wait for son's travel document
Read more: How do I apply for an Irish passport?
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