Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Independent)
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141. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the processing time for applications to change immigration status; if she will report on any backlog in processing applications; and if she will provide, in tabular form, the number of applications for a change in immigration status that were approved and declined in 2012 to 2014, inclusive, and to date in 2015. [9661/15]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I am informed by the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service (INIS) of my Department that the statistics requested by the Deputy are not readily available and could only be compiled by the allocation of an inordinate amount of staff time and resources.

As the Deputy will appreciate there are many applications across a range of categories which result in a decision being made which materially changes the immigration status of an individual.

I would draw the Deputy's attention to the report I issued on 26 January 2015 which gives details of Immigration activities in 2014 and which is available on the Department's website. I can inform the Deputy that, in 2014 alone, approximately 172,000 new applications were received by INIS for various immigration permissions. The report also gives details of developments underway across the broad immigration area.

If the Deputy has a specific query relating to any particular scheme I will endeavour to answer it in more detail.