Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the range of increased funding contained in what we have been discussing this morning. It is very welcome across the range of areas the Minister spoke about. I want to specifically ask him about an issue I have raised previously, namely, the funding for Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service, INIS. I appreciate the Minister made some comments on that earlier. I have to be honest and say that the way in which INIS is processing visa applications is totally unsatisfactory. There are inordinate delays across the board from fairly mundane visa applications to people looking to come to live in our country. Some of that needs to be addressed through increased support and funding but I would make the point to the Minister that, operationally, some of it seems to be an unacceptable way of delivering the service to the people using it. I have highlighted previously, and directly for the Minister, that people making very reasonable requests for visas for, say, family members to enter the country for a short duration have been left waiting many months for an answer. Will the allocation increase, which I believe is approximately 11%, address the current problems in INIS?