Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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160. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality if his Department will re-examine the application for family reunification in the case of a person (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30635/17]

Charles Flanagan (Laois, Fine Gael)
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I am advised by the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service of my Department that the person referred to by the Deputy submitted an application for Family Reunification pursuant to Section 18 of the Refugee Act 1996 (as amended) in respect of one family member on the 13 December 2016. The application in respect of the person the subject of the application was referred to the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner (ORAC) for investigation. No documents were submitted by the applicant to the ORAC. The ORAC completed their investigation on the basis of the information supplied and submitted their report to the Minister for consideration.

Consideration of the ORAC report had been completed by the Minister, however, prior to a decision issuing documents were received from the applicant as a result of which the application has been referred back to ORAC for further investigation and report in respect of the subject named in the initial application.

It was noted that the correspondence received included details of 2 further subjects who were not part of the original December application. The addition of these new subjects to the original application cannot be accepted pursuant to Section 56 of the International Protection Act 2015 which came into effect on 31 December 2016.

The Deputy may wish to note that queries in relation to the status of individual immigration cases may be made directly to INIS by e-mail using the Oireachtas Mail facility which has been established specifically for this purpose. This service enables up to date information on such cases to be obtained without the need to seek information by way of the Parliamentary Questions process. The Deputy may consider using the e-mail service except in cases where the response from INIS is, in the Deputy’s view, inadequate or too long awaited.