Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 27 July 2021
1396. Deputy Duncan Smith asked the Minister for Justice if she has plans to implement a citizenship amnesty to applicants due to backlogs in the system and as a gesture from the State to all those who resided here during the Covid-19 pandemic; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [40810/21]
View answerThe granting of Irish citizenship through naturalisation is governed by the provisions of the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 1956, as amended. All applications for a certificate of naturalisation are processed and assessed individually in accordance with the provisions of the Act. To maintain the integrity of the process, an amnesty, as suggested by the Deputy, would not be considered appropriate.
However, I am deeply conscious of how important the granting of naturalisation is to those who apply for it and my Department has continued to accept and process citizenship applications throughout the pandemic and at all levels of public health restrictions. However, processing rates have been negatively impacted by the necessary health and safety related restrictions imposed and it has not been possible to hold in-person citizenship ceremonies since March 2020.
This has further exacerbated significant delays which arose from a High Court case in 2019, which was subsequently successfully appealed to the Court of Appeal. Unfortunately that resulted in the loss of over six months’ processing time, before the appeal resolved the issue.
In order to deal with applicants that were in the final stages of processing, on 18 January 2021, my Department opened a temporary system to enable applicants to complete their naturalisation process by signing a statutory declaration of loyalty. Since then, my Department has delivered on its commitment to communicate with 6,500 applicants by the end of June, inviting them to complete the final steps required prior to the granting of a certificate of naturalisation.
Over 4,400 people have received their certificates so far including a significant number of healthcare and other front-line workers who have made extraordinary contributions during the pandemic.
To further address the volume of applications on hand, additional staff are being assigned to the citizenship team; and a number of digitisation measures have been introduced to increase efficiency in the process including eTax clearance, eVetting and online payments.
The end result of the digitisation process will be to free up more staff to focus on processing applications in a timely and efficient manner, to improve service to our customers and reduce waiting times. Based on this, my objective is to achieve an improved decision making timeframe of 6-9 months for a majority of applications during 2022.
