Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 25 May 2023
Public Accounts Committee
Appropriation Accounts 2021
Vote 24 – Justice
9:30 am
Mr. Doncha O'Sullivan:
As an unfortunate by-product of the impact of restrictions on our building use and the fact our systems are paper-based, we have built up a backlog of cases in the citizenship area. The median processing time is about 19 months. Minors, particularly those whose family have already been naturalised, are a particular category. We have a programme this year of trying to break the back of that backlog. We have a particular programme in place around naturalising minors because they are straightforward cases.