Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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18. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the steps that are being taken to rectify some of the impact the disruption to the operation of the foreign birth register during Covid-19 has had on applicants, such as cases in which the delay to completing the registration of a person could impact the rights of their children to claim citizenship; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [47173/21]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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My Department is responsible for citizenship by descent through the Foreign Births Register under the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 1956 (“the 1956 Act”), as amended. 

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the processing time for FBR applications stood at 18 months due to an unprecedented surge in applications as a result of Brexit and the necessarily rigorous processing that applies to citizenship applications. At present, there are just over 31,000 applications in the Foreign Births Registration system.

During the pandemic, Passport Service staff were reassigned to the HSE for essential contact tracing; to the Department of Social Protection for the processing of essential PUP payments, and to support the Department of Health with quarantine issues. This resulted in a pause in overall FBR processing while Passport Service staff continued to provide an emergency service for Foreign Birth Registration in cases of exceptional urgency. Over 4,500 of such emergency FBR applications have been processed in 2021. The FBR Service continues to consider urgent requests to expedite an application on a case by case basis, in cases such as expectant parents, or stateless persons.

In cases of exceptional urgency FBR applicants may continue to contact the Passport Service directly by telephone or webchat on the Department’s website (www.dfa.ie).

The Passport Service is very concerned about the number of FBR applications currently on hand and is actively planning to resume processing FBR applications as soon as possible. My Department is committed to allocating further resources to assist with the high volume of applications, with a focus on reducing turnaround times to pre-COVID-19 levels by the end of 2021.  In the medium term, changes to the FBR process to increase efficiencies and improve the customer experience will be delivered under the next phase of my Department's Passport Reform Programme.