Skip to main content
Normal View

Citizenship Applications

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 15 June 2021

Tuesday, 15 June 2021

Questions (1160, 1161, 1162)

Seán Sherlock

Question:

1160. Deputy Sean Sherlock asked the Minister for Justice if her Department is on track to give 6,500 citizenship applicants the opportunity to complete their Irish citizenship by the end of June 2021. [32020/21]

View answer

Seán Sherlock

Question:

1161. Deputy Sean Sherlock asked the Minister for Justice the number of Irish citizenship applicants who are currently waiting longer than 12 months for a decision on their application. [32021/21]

View answer

Seán Sherlock

Question:

1162. Deputy Sean Sherlock asked the Minister for Justice the average waiting time for citizenship applications to date in 2021. [32022/21]

View answer

Written answers

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1160, 1161 and 1162 together.

In January 2021, my Department opened a temporary system that enables applicants to complete their naturalisation process by signing a statutory declaration of loyalty.

To date, my Department has communicated with 6,000 applicants and has issued 2,894 Certificates of Naturalisation. Further communications will issue over the coming weeks and my Department is on track to meet the target of communicating with 6,500 people by the end of June 2021.

My Department continued to accept and process citizenship applications throughout the pandemic and at all levels of public health restrictions. Unfortunately, processing rates have been impacted by the necessary health and safety related restrictions imposed and we have been unable to hold in-person citizenship ceremonies since March 2020. In addition to the Covid-19 disruption, a High Court case in 2019, which was subsequently successfully appealed to the Court of Appeal, also resulted in significant delays and the loss of over six months’ processing time.

Of the more than 24,000 applications currently on hand, there are 12,007 applicants waiting longer than 12 months for a decision on their application and the average time to an approval decision is currently 22 months. This figure will improve as the backlog in applications is cleared, with the easing of Government restrictions allowing more staff to return to the office to process applications.

To further address the volume of applications on hand, we are assigning additional staff to the citizenship team; and a number of measures have been introduced to increase the digitisation of the process. This includes the introduction of eTax clearance and eVetting; rolling out online payments; revising the Department's website to make it more user-friendly for customers; and launching the first immigration chatbot, Tara, which has answered more than 12,000 customer queries in a user-friendly way since last November.

The end result of the digitisation process will be to free up staff resources to focus on processing applications in a timely and efficient manner, to improve service to our customers and reduce waiting times.

Question No. 1161 answered with Question No. 1160.
Question No. 1162 answered with Question No. 1160.
Top
Share