Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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315. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality further to Parliamentary Question No. 319 of 20 January 2015, if she will provide a breakdown of the reasons provided for spouses or civil partners of Irish citizens, who were not granted family reunification visas, in the years 2011 to 2014 inclusive; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [7773/15]

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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316. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the number of persons who are married to, or in civil partnerships with, Irish citizens who were not granted family reunification visas in the years 2007 to 2010 inclusive; if she will provide a breakdown of the reasons provided for spouses or civil partners of Irish citizens who were not granted family reunification visas in these years; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [7774/15]

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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317. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the number of persons who are married to, or in civil partnerships with, Irish citizens who were granted family reunification visas in the years 2007 to 2010 inclusive. [7775/15]

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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318. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the number of persons who did not meet the criteria for a family reunification visa, as outlined in her Department's policy document, but were granted a visa, based on ministerial or departmental discretion, for the years 2011 to 2014, inclusive; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [7776/15]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 315 to 318, inclusive, together.

Prior to the introduction of a new computerised visa system by the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service (INIS) of my Department in 2008 and rolled out to Irish Missions and Visa Office worldwide throughout 2008 and 2009, only limited statistical information was recorded, often manually, at individual offices. Accordingly, the detailed information sought by the Deputy for the years 2007 to 2009 is not available. I am, however, advised by INIS that in 2009, an estimated 368 entry visas were granted for the purpose of joining Irish spouses or partners. For the reason outlined above, a further breakdown of these figures is not possible, including the number of refusals. In 2010, 539 Irish entry visas were granted for the purpose of joining Irish spouses or partners and 76 were refused.

The total number of refusals of Irish entry visa applications for the period 2011 to 2014, made for the purpose of joining Irish spouses or partners, was 495. A breakdown of the number of applications granted and refused in each of these years was provided to the Deputy in reply to her question of 20 January, 2015.

Applications for visas for family reunification are refused for a range of reasons such as insufficient documentation furnished by the applicant or in some cases suspected fraudulent documents. In addition, visas are refused because of the financial capacity of the Irish national sponsor. Indeed in many cases there can be a combination of these and other reasons for refusal. Accordingly, it is not possible to provide the breakdown sought by the Deputy without the examination of the file of each individual application which would require the expenditure of an inordinate amount of staff time and resources being diverted away from processing of applications which could not be justified.

The Department's Policy Document on Non-EEA Family Reunification, referred to by the Deputy, was published in December 2013 and came into force on 1st January 2014. In that year, a total of 760 entry visas were granted for the purpose of joining an Irish spouse or partner. The policy document specifically recognises ministerial discretion indicating that such discretion applies to most of the decision making in the area of family reunification as covered by the policy document. It is more a question of the policy document providing greater detail on how that discretion is intended to be applied. Accordingly, the visa deciding officer considers the full circumstances of each case which are fully taken into account in deciding each application. In addition, appeals of decisions are considered by a different officer of my Department who is generally at a more senior level.