Peadar Tóibín
Question:1269. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Justice if a visa and citizenship application will be processed as soon as possible for a person (details supplied). [1651/22]
View answerWednesday, 19 January 2022
Questions (1269)
Written answers
The person referred to by the Deputy submitted an application for a EU3 - Permanent Residence card with the EU Treaty Rights Division of my Department on 23 February 2021. Processing of this application is ongoing at present.
As each application is examined under its own merits, I am unable to provide an exact timeframe for its completion. However, the person can be assured that there will be no avoidable delay in finalising their application. They will be contacted in writing as soon as a decision has been made.
An application for a certificate of naturalisation was also received from the person concerned on 12 November 2020. This application is currently being processed with a view to establishing whether the applicant meets the statutory conditions for the granting of naturalisation and will be submitted to me for decision as expeditiously as possible.
The granting of Irish citizenship through naturalisation is a privilege and an honour which confers certain rights and entitlements not only within the State but also at European Union level and it is important that appropriate procedures are in place to preserve the integrity of the process.
It is recognised that all applicants for citizenship would wish to have a decision on their application without delay. However, the nature of the naturalisation process is such that, for a broad range of reasons, some cases will take longer than others to process. In some instances, completing the necessary checks can take a considerable period of time.
In addition, the combined impact of the 2019 High Court judgment in the Jones case and the necessary health restrictions arising from the pandemic, has unfortunately resulted in the processing time for standard applications increasing.
However, my Department is taking a number of steps to speed up the processing of applications and a number of digitisation measures have also 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.
In 2021, 11,512 citizenship decisions were delivered, significantly exceeding the levels achieved in the last two years. Additional staff have also been assigned to the citizenship team. Based on these measures, my Department's objective is to achieve an improved timeframe of 6-9 months for decisions on a majority of applications during 2022.
Queries in relation to the status of individual immigration cases may be made directly to my Department by e-mail using the Oireachtas Mail facility at: INISOireachtasMail@justice.ie, which has been specifically established for this purpose. This service enables up to date information on such cases to be obtained without the need to seek information by way of the Parliamentary Question process. The Deputy may consider using the e-mail service except in the cases where the response is, in the Deputy's view, inadequate or too long awaited.