Ms Oonagh Buckley:

I do not have any final comments other than to thank the members of the committee and the Chairman for their compliments about the service. The team in the Department is working very hard to improve our customer service rating, which I think we would all acknowledge is at a low enough base. It is great to hear that the supports we are putting in for Members of the Houses of the Oireachtas are working. Let us know if there is anything further we can do to help them answer questions and when they make representations on behalf of people and so forth. We are always willing to listen to what we can do to improve on that.

This is an incredibly important part of the job of the Department of Justice. The immigration services are our most public facing activity and obviously it is a public that is from all over the world. As I have said, often times the interaction with the Irish immigration service is the first interaction somebody coming to this country will have with the Irish State so it is important and incumbent upon us to make that as smooth, easy and responsive as possible. We are working very hard to deliver on that. I thank the committee for allowing us to come here today and explain the work that we do.