Máire Devine (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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197. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality if he will grant an amnesty period for a visa applicant (details supplied) as he has been attempting to make appointments to renew his visa via the Immigration Service Delivery's digital contact centre, but due to poor system availability, has been unable to do so; if he will arrange for appropriate personnel to contact the applicant directly to make an appointment; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3818/25]

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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I can inform the Deputy that the person concerned has been contacted by the Registration Office within Immigration Service Delivery (ISD) of my Department and arrangements have been made to renew their immigration residence permission.

In keeping with the Government commitment to significantly enhance the delivery of public services digitally, phase one of the Department of Justice Immigration Digital Contact Centre (DCC) went live in October 2024. The DCC is a self-service portal that enables applicants to check their immigration application status, book first-time registration appointments, and submit queries.

I can inform the Deputy that due to high volumes of people accessing our online services in January some applicants experienced very slow speeds and sessions disconnecting, this included people wishing to make registration appointments. I am informed these technical issues are in the process of being resolved. My Department is also aware of some customers finding it difficult to register for a digital account; this issue relates mainly to the validation of identity documentation. A detailed user guide to help applicants through the process will be released in the coming days.

I appreciate this may have caused frustration from some of our applicants and my Department will work with any applicants that have been affected to ensure they can access an appointment in a timely manner without impacting adversely on their immigration status.

Immigration Service Delivery is committed to providing the best possible service to applicants and a centralised applicant support team has been established comprising of over 20 staff to support this. Since the DCC went live more than 55,000 people have registered with the system, 15,000 appointments have been booked successfully and 47,000 customer queries have been resolved.

Work is ongoing to continuously improve the services offered by the DCC and my Department and ISD remains committed to providing the best possible service to applicants and service users.

Queries in relation to the status of any individual immigration cases may be made directly to my Department by email using the Oireachtas Mail facility (IM), which has been specifically established for this purpose. This service enables up to date information on such cases to be obtained without the need to seek information by way of the Parliamentary Questions process. The Deputy may consider using the email service except in cases where the response is, in the Deputy’s view, inadequate or too long awaited.