The Deputy will appreciate that the time taken to process applications both now and over the past number of years has always depended on a number of circumstances, including the legislative provisions in place at the time; the complexity of the case in question; the resources available; the numbers of cases on hand; etc.
Consequently, the compilation of data relating to the average processing time for applications for each of the past ten years would require a disproportionate and inordinate amount of staff time and effort to prepare and could not be justified in current circumstances where there are other significant demands on resources.