Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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115. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the details of the trend in applications for visas, naturalisation and so on over the past five years; the trend in staff allocated to the work; the data that is tracked in relation to the build-up in arrears of applications or the duration which it takes to issue applications or to schedule necessary appointments; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5229/22]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on my Department's immigration service delivery over the last two years. Measures introduced to support public health guidelines have unavoidably led to a reduction in processing capacity across all areas at certain times. My Department constantly manages and reviews the allocation of resources to ensure that they are optimised to meet business requirements and that staff are allocated where they are most needed. 

Despite these challenges, in 2021, my Department issued 11,512 citizenship decisions, which is the highest number of decisions made since 2015. My Department is also 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 citizenship applications during 2022.

Since the onset of the pandemic, immigration permissions have been extended nine times and as a result, people who held a valid permission to be in the State in March 2020 are legally permitted to remain until 31 May 2022.

As part of my Department’s ongoing work to meet the current unprecedented demand for first-time registration appointments, on 10 January 2022, a Freephone service (1800 741 741) was introduced for customers. It is currently operating 12 hours a day from Monday to Friday (8am to 8pm) and 8 hours a day on Saturday and Sunday (9am to 5pm). There are between 15 and 20 customer service representatives taking calls and making appointments. All appointments for customers to register their immigration permission are now issued through this service, with operators offering one appointment per call, unless it is for an identifiable family group. Almost 9,000 registration appointments have been booked to date and are scheduled to take place between now and April.

Demand for first-time appointments is tracked by the number of people coming forward to seek appointments, along with information provided to my Department by educational institutions, businesses, Government agencies such as the IDA, and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

The processing of renewals for Dublin based customers takes place fully online since July 2020, and currently takes between 8-10 weeks. In the meantime, customers continue to benefit from the extension of immigration permissions until May.

In 2021, the Registration Office in Burgh Quay processed 66,321 online renewals and 15,125 first time registrations and issued 6,805 re-entry visas.

Visa applications are processed in a number of Visa Offices overseas, in my Department's Visa Office in Dublin, and at Embassies of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which process certain visa applications under delegated sanction from my Department.

The processing time at each office and location worldwide is determined by a number of factors, such as the volumes and complexity of applications, whether investigation is required or not, individual circumstances, peak application periods, seasonal factors, and the resources available.  While every effort is made to process applications as quickly as possible, processing times inevitably vary as a result. Processing times are regularly updated on my Department's website at: www.irishimmigration.ie/visa-decisions/. 

Further statistical details on applications across a number of immigration-related operational areas are set out in the attached tables, for the Deputy's information.