Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 29 September 2004
1052 Mr. Carey asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if it is possible to expedite the issuing of holiday visas into Ireland in view of the fact that the waiting period of six to eight weeks currently being experienced can be very inconvenient to tourists wishing to visit here; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21578/04]
View answerThe visa section in the immigration and citizenship division of my Department is committed to providing a high quality service to its customers and is making every effort to process all visa applications in as timely a manner as possible. However, the section operates against a background of significant increases in the number of visa applications received and limited resources available to process them. As an indication of the unprecedented escalation in the numbers of applications for Irish visas in recent years, the number of applications determined by the visa officers increased from 12,201 in 1997 to 24,334 in 2000 and 47,666 in 2003 — an increase of 290% over the last six years.
In June 2002 my Department took the unprecedented step of seconding a number of visa officers to the Irish Embassies in Beijing and Moscow. A primary objective of this initiative was to enable the provision of a better and more timely customer service by making decisions locally rather than having large numbers of visa applications sent to Dublin for decision. Extra resources were also allocated to the visa section in the Department to cater for the increasing volume of visa applications and it is hoped to allocate more resources as these become available.
