Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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1221. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality her views on the 2020 target for citizenship applicants being missed (details supplied); and if meeting the 2021 and 2022 targets will suffice to clear the current backlog. [63336/21]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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My Department estimated that it would finalise in the region of 12,000 citizenship applications in 2020. However, the Deputy will appreciate that these figures were projected before the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and before my Department became aware of the impact the pandemic would have on its processing capabilities. 

In January 2021, I introduced a temporary system to enable citizenship applicants to complete their naturalisation process by signing a statutory declaration of loyalty to the state. This signed statutory declaration replaces the requirement for citizenship applicants to attend citizenship ceremonies, which have been temporarily suspended during Covid-19. 

In 2021, my Department issued 11,512 citizenship decisions, of which 9,783 applicants have already been issued with their certificates of naturalisation. As the statutory declaration process is still open to applicants, new declarations are being received on a daily basis and certificates will continue to issue to all applicants who complete the process. 

Both the number of decisions and naturalisation certificates issued last year is greater than in any year since 2015. This is a tremendous achievement by the staff of the Citizenship Division who have shown great commitment and dedication throughout the pandemic.  

As the Deputy will be aware, many aspects of service delivery in both the public and private sectors were significantly curtailed due to the pandemic. However, at no time during the pandemic did my Department cease processing citizenship applications, despite restrictions on the number of staff allowed on-site at any one time. In addition, legacy backlogs arising from the Jones High Court judgment in 2019 compounded difficulties in service provision. 

However, my Department is taking a number of steps to speed up the processing of applications and a number of digitisation measures have also been introduced to increase efficiency in the process, including eTax clearance, eVetting and online payments. The end result of the digitisation process will be to free up more staff to focus on processing applications in a timely and efficient manner, to improve service to our customers and reduce waiting times. Based on these measures, my Department's objective is to achieve an improved timeframe of 6-9 months for decisions on a majority of applications during 2022.