Mr. Eugene Lennon:

I would prefer not to get into the individual cases, but in each case, an initial application was submitted, and there was contact between the Department and the applicant. Often additional information is forwarded to the Department at a certain point.

From the time the application was received in these cases, each case was dealt with in 24 hours and a response was made to the applicants. In one case before Christmas, the process took approximately three weeks. Another application was received around the 31 January 2017 and the Department has made contact with the applicant since then but in that case, the point at which it is possible to make a recommendation to grant a licence has not been reached.