Ms Oonagh Buckley:

The Senator is correct that Covid is not making our lives any easier. That is largely due to the fact that the system is almost entirely paper based. If Members were to go into the IPO they would be shocked by how old-fashioned it looks. There are literally files everywhere. One of our priorities is to move to a paperless system, without which the social distancing and other measures we are required to implement because of Covid make our lives very difficult. There is a second aspect to the way in which the pandemic has impacted upon our work. We have to arrange to interview the applicants and they are commonly represented by a solicitor and often need interpretation services. It can be very challenging to organise for all of those people to be present. We have started to move to remote interviewing. That is challenging the staff to organise, but we are starting to get there and we are starting to schedule more remote hearings.

Mr. Delaney is more familiar with the chatbot than I am. It is certainly working for citizenship. I will hand over to Mr. Delaney to go through how we are using robots to help our client base.