Catherine Murphy
Question:434. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Minister for Justice if she will consider establishing a dedicated email contact for local government elected representatives in respect of INIS services. [42193/23]
View answerTuesday, 3 October 2023
Questions (434)
Written answers
The Oireachtas Mail service was established by my Department in response to the volume of requests being submitted via Parliamentary Questions. The purpose of the Oireachtas Mail service is to assist Oireachtas members who have specific immigration application status requests. It is an exclusive service and is designed to help serve the democratic needs of our national parliament.
The Oireachtas mail service is a parallel service to the normal Parliamentary Questions process however it continues to operate when the Oireachtas is in recess. ln the last 12 months Oireachtas Mail received in excess of 6,000 individual immigration queries and the majority of answers were returned within 3 days of receipt.
There are no plans to create a dedicated service for local representatives but many avenues remain open to an applicant, and any 3rd party appropriately authorised to act on their behalf, who wish to seek any update on their application. Queries can be forwarded to the relevant ISD customer service inbox or info@justice.ie. Further details are available on my Departments Immigration services website www.irishimmigration.ie
Furthermore, as part of the modernisation of my Department, the Immigration Service Delivery (ISD) has begun to transition from paper-based and labour intensive processes to more efficient, robust and customer-centric immigration services, in line with my Department’s Digital First Policy. One of the customer-focused enhancements ISD is currently developing is the ability for applicants to access real-time online updates on the status of their applications for immigration schemes.
The solution will be a new system implementation which will replace and consolidate existing systems and processes and it is envisaged that self-service channels will be the primary points of contact with an option to escalate queries to call centre staff where necessary. To ensure a cohesive customer journey all contact channels are intended to be centralised to ensure smooth and seamless transitions between the self-service and assisted service stages.