It's frustrating when people complain about the very, very few Irish bureaucratic things that are going really well. The Irish passport office is as speedy and efficient as you could hope for.
Dr NeutopiaSinead O'Sullivan has written an article on how the only way to get a passport quickly in Ireland is to contact your TD. This sounds like the kind of thing you'd write if your most recent experience of getting a passport in the late 1970s.