Mr. Brian Killoran:

While "paper-based immigration system" may be a bit of a catch-all term, essentially we mean there is a high level of bureaucracy in the system. Some of it is digitised while some of the application processes are very paper-based and document-heavy. One answer is digitisation. That has an impact on the ability of some members of the community to access it but overall it would give people from a migrant background the ability to make applications online, submit documents online and check the status of applications online and to do so in secure formats that will not require, for example, repeated written correspondence with the Department of Justice checking the status of an application or correspondence back and forth with officials in the Department looking for documentation and sometimes requesting documentation that already has been submitted.

Some of it is about the channels into the Department of Justice in terms of how people communicate things, but it is also about communication within the Department regarding a person's status and the documents that have been submitted. An example will come up where somebody has gone through five years of legal residency in the State, registered his or her presence, submitted his or her documents, met all the terms and conditions through the years and then applies for Irish citizenship at the end of it. He or she will go through the citizenship process and will have to submit everything again. Such people have to get documents from one part of the Department and submit them to another part. That level of communication is bureaucratically difficult on the applicant and it is a massive drain on State resources to go through this level of double and triple bureaucracy in some cases.

Some of that has improved of late. The Department of Justice, in the case of citizenship, has not required people to submit their passport again. Small tweaks and changes can make a big difference. We urge the Department as part of its commitment to immigration reform-----