Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Seery Kearney for raising this issue, which I am taking on behalf of the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs.

The Passport Service of the Department of Foreign Affairs is responsible for processing applications for citizenship by descent through the foreign births register under the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 1956, as amended. As the Senator will be aware, people born abroad may apply for Irish citizenship through foreign birth registration, FBR, if one of their grandparents was born in Ireland or if one of their parents acquired citizenship through FBR or naturalisation. Once a person is entered onto the foreign births register, they are an Irish citizen and are entitled to apply for an Irish passport. Foreign birth registration, by its nature, is a detailed and complex process. It can involve official documentation relating to three generations and issued by several different jurisdictions. To protect the integrity of the citizenship process, these applications require careful processing in order to validate the identity of the applicant, the documents they have submitted and their entitlement to Irish citizenship. Accordingly, all applications undergo rigorous and detailed checking by experienced officers of the Passport Service.

Demand for foreign birth registration services reached unprecedented levels following the Brexit referendum in 2016. Prior to that referendum, FBR applications averaged 5,000 to 6,000 per year. However, post referendum, demand for citizenship via foreign birth registration has increased significantly. The most recent full-year figures saw over 35,000 applications received by the Passport Service in 2023. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, the processing time for foreign birth registration applications stood at 18 months due to the dramatic increase in applications as a result of Brexit. The FBR service was also impacted by necessary Covid-19 restrictions in 2020 and 2021, as well as the unprecedented demand seen in 2022. The service was paused for 15 months across the 2020 to 2021 period, after which the turnaround time was over two years.

Since September 2022, significant extra resources have been deployed. I am pleased to inform the Senator that as a result of the deployment of these resources, the processing time has been reduced to the normal turnaround time of between eight and nine months, which is a 75% reduction in processing time since 2022.

In the medium term, changes to the foreign birth registration process to increase efficiencies and improve the customer experience will be delivered under the next phase of the Department’s passport reform programme. I assure the Seanad that the Department of Foreign Affairs is fully committed to maintaining the necessary resources needed to assist with dealing with the high volume of applications.I recognise the specific context of the case the Senator has outlined, which should receive the attention of officials in the Department of Foreign Affairs. We will ask for that engagement and that the matter be reflected on based on what she has set out today.