Pa Daly
Question:545. Deputy Pa Daly asked the Minister for Justice the current waiting times for citizenship applications broken down by European and non-European economic area applicants in tabular form. [15856/22]
View answerTuesday, 29 March 2022
Questions (545, 546)
Pa Daly
Question:546. Deputy Pa Daly asked the Minister for Justice the approximate increase in waiting times for citizenship applications due to the Covid-19 pandemic; and if she will provide a comparison of the average waiting times in each of the years 2015 to 2021 and to date in 2022. [15857/22]
View answerWritten answers
I propose to take Questions Nos. 545 and 546 together.
I am deeply conscious of how important the granting of naturalisation is to those who apply for it and my Department continued to accept and process citizenship applications throughout the pandemic and during all levels of public health restrictions.
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.
The current average processing time for naturalisation applications is 22 months. However it should be noted that last year, my Department made 11,512 citizenship decisions, which is the highest level since 2015.
As previously advised to the Deputy, statistics are not maintained by my Department to provide for a breakdown between EEA and non-EEA applicants.
The citizenship application process is reviewed on an ongoing basis to continually improve customer service quality. Feedback from applicants is taken on board and, as a result, a much more simplified, customer-focused and streamlined mechanism for applicants to provide their proofs of residence has recently been introduced. To further speed up the processing of applications, 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. Additional staff have also been assigned to the citizenship team. Since the beginning of this year, new applicants for citizenship no longer have to submit their original passport with their application. Instead, they can provide a full colour copy of their entire passport, including the front and back covers. This change in practice is welcomed by our customers and is also freeing up valuable staff time that up to now has been engaged in returning passports to applicants.
I am also pleased to confirm that, subject to public health guidelines, my Department intends to host an in-person citizenship ceremony on 20 June 2022 and further ceremonies on 5 and 6 December 2022 in Killarney.
The average processing time in months for citizenship applications for the years 2015 – 2021 are set out in the table below.
|
Year |
Number of Applications decided |
Average Processing Time (Months) |
|
2015 |
12,869 |
7 |
|
2016 |
11,081 |
6 |
|
2017 |
9,190 |
7 |
|
2018 |
11,139 |
10 |
|
2019 |
9,319 |
12 |
|
2020 |
3,551 |
13 |
|
2021 |
11,512 |
23 |
Question No. 546 answered with Question No. 545.