Citizenship Applications

Wednesday, 5 May 2021

Questions (468, 469)

Seán Sherlock

Question:

468. Deputy Sean Sherlock asked the Minister for Justice the number of citizenship applications that have reached a decision stage in each month from January 2020. [22745/21]

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469. Deputy Sean Sherlock asked the Minister for Justice her plans to speed up the processing of citizenship applications in hand to pre-Covid-19 pandemic rates; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [22746/21]

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Written answers

Minister of State at the Department of Justice

I propose to take Questions Nos. 468 and 469 together.

The table below sets out the number of citizenship applications that have reached a decision stage - where a decision has been made on the application by the Minister for Justice - in each month from January 2020, as requested by the Deputy.

Month	2020	2021
January	3928	40
February	171	647
March	39	1,233
April	1	1,036
May	2
June	67
July	80
August	77
September	152
October	569
November	41
December	32
Total	5,159	2956

On 18 January 2021, a temporary system that enables citizenship applicants to complete their naturalisation process by signing a statutory declaration of loyalty was opened and approximately 1,708 people have received their Irish citizenship since then. A further 1,057 people have returned their signed statutory declarations and the Immigration Service will be sending them their certificates of naturalisation in the coming weeks.

It has also been decided to extend the statutory declaration process to a further 2,500 people and by the end of June, it is expected that 6,500 people will have been given the opportunity to complete their Irish citizenship.

In-person citizenship ceremonies have been provisionally scheduled to resume in December 2021, subject to the safety of all involved being assured.

Additionally, work is well advanced on a number of other measures to deal with the current unprecedented level of demand:

- An additional staffing resource is being assigned to the Citizenship Division of my Department. Attendant to this development, restructuring of the organisational structure of the Division is currently underway to ensure optimal customer service delivery;

- Plans for the digitalisation of the naturalisation process are also well advanced, in line with the plan to significantly modernise the justice sector through increased digital and ICT investment. As part of this process, online payments have been trialled for Minor applications and the process is currently being rolled out to Adult applications on a phased basis; and

- The paper based transaction model currently utilised with the National Vetting Bureau is being moved to a digital platform. It is anticipated this will substantially cut application processing times once it is fully operational.

The end result of the digitisation process will be to free up additional resources to focus on enhanced customer service delivery, ensuring the integrity of the process is protected and processing applications in a timely and efficient manner.

Question No. 469 answered with Question No. 468.