Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 8 September 2022
1376. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Minister for Justice if she will provide an update on the processing of an application for citizenship in respect of a person (details supplied) ; and the current length of time that a citizenship application is taking to process. [42276/22]
View answerBased on the information provided by the Deputy, it has not been possible to locate a citizenship application for the person referred to. The reference number provided suggests that they may have made an application to the Department of Foreign Affairs under their foreign births registration process.
To be of some assistance, I have provided some general information below in relation to the naturalisation process.
Regrettably, the current average processing time for naturalisation applications is approximately 23 months. 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.
My Justice Plan 2022 commits to developing a fully digital, customer-centric immigration service and to enhance the efficiency of our immigration system. In line with these commitments, a number of actions have been taken to reduce the impact on immigration processing times, including the introduction of online applications, a new customer service help desk and a new customer-focused immigration website.
As a result of the introduction of the temporary statutory declaration process in January 2021, and the assignment of additional staff to the citizenship team, last year, 11,512 citizenship decisions were made. This is the highest number of decisions made annually since 2015 and reflects positively the significant changes undertaken to date. For the first six months of 2022, almost 7,900 citizenship decisions have been issued.
Since 1 January 2022, 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 is also freeing up valuable staff that up to now have been engaged in returning passports to applicants and will also help to reduce processing times.
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.
Detailed information on Irish citizenship and the naturalisation process, along with the relevant application forms and guidance notes, is available on my Department's immigration website at: www.irishimmigration.ie/how-to-become-a-citizen/.
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.
