Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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41. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the status of an application to the foreign births register (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [61106/22]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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My Department is responsible for processing Foreign Birth Registration (FBR) applications for people who are born abroad and claim Irish Citizenship through a grandparent born in Ireland or through a parent who has claimed citizenship also through FBR, Naturalisation or Post Nuptial Citizenship.

Demand for this service increased significantly as a result of the Brexit vote in the UK. In 2015, prior to Brexit, a total of 6,000 entries were made to the register. In 2019, a peak number of 19,000 entries were made to the Foreign Births Register.

The service was also impacted by necessary Covid-19 restrictions in 2020 and 2021 and the unprecedented demand for passports seen to date in 2022.

My Department has put in place a number of measures to address the volume of FBR applications currently on hand with a view to significantly reducing the processing time for these citizenship applications by the end of this year. These measures, which include increased staffing directed towards the processing of FBR applications, are having a positive impact on the number of applications being processed each month.

The application to which the Deputy has referred was registered on 1 December 2021 and is being stored in a secure environment pending entitlement checking.