Written answers

Tuesday, 5 April 2022

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Foreign Birth Registration

Photo of Ruairi Ó MurchúRuairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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422. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the number of full, part-time and casual staff processing applications for the foreign births register monthly from January 2020 to date in tabular form. [18271/22]

Photo of Ruairi Ó MurchúRuairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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423. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the status of the scaling-up operations in regard to applications to the foreign births register; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18272/22]

Photo of Ruairi Ó MurchúRuairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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424. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the month in which the foreign birth register applications currently being worked on were received; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18273/22]

Photo of Simon CoveneySimon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 422 to 424, inclusive, together.

My Department is responsible for citizenship by descent through the Foreign Births Register under the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 1956, as amended.

Before the onset of Covid-19, 18 staff were assigned to Foreign Birth Registration (FBR) entitlement checking. Due to the pandemic, from March 2020, FBR staff were redeployed to assist in the delivery of essential services, which resulted in a pause in overall FBR processing for a total of 15 months across the 2020-2021 period. Despite this pause, 12,000 FBR applications were processed in 2020, and 7,000 applications were processed in 2021 as FBR staff continued to provide an emergency service for Foreign Birth Registration in cases of exceptional urgency, such as expectant parents, or stateless persons.

Given the redeployment of staff from the FBR team to passport checking and other essential services during the pandemic the Passport Service does not have a monthly record of the numbers of staff assigned to FBR entitlement checking during that period. 

Since the reopening of the FBR Service in November 2021, there have been 17 staff assigned to FBR entitlement checking. Three thousand applications have been processed to date in 2022.  The Entitlement Team are currently processing applications for which supporting documents were received in January 2020.

The processing of FBR will continue to gradually scale up in line with the recruitment of additional resources. Due to the complex nature of the FBR process, the large increase in applications received following the Brexit vote in the UK, and the pause in the service due to necessary Covid-19 restrictions, applicants should allow over 2 years from the receipt of supporting documentation for processing of FBR applications at this time. The FBR service operates a transparent general policy of processing applications in order of receipt.

My Department is fully committed to the continued allocation of additional resources over the coming period to assist with the processing of the Foreign Birth Registration applications currently on hand and the high volume of new applications anticipated this year.

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