Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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1569. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality to provide details of the current processing times for immigration applications for citizens of Brazil, Pakistan, and Nigeria for each of the past five years on 1 April, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19439/25]

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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The naturalisation application processing times of individual nationalities are not recorded by my Department.

I can assure the Deputy that the Citizenship Division of my Department is doing everything possible to progress applications as quickly as possible.

I understand that extended wait times can be frustrating for applicants, however, Citizenship Division have taken a significant number of steps to speed up the process for applicants. These included introducing an online digital application, online payments, and the introduction of eVetting.

I am pleased to inform the Deputy that these changes are dramatically reducing processing times. The median processing time for a decision on an application in 2024 was 8 months, down from 15 months in 2023, and 19 months in 2022.

I expect that going forward, the vast majority of applicants will continue to receive a decision within one year, however, it is important to note that no two naturalisation applications are the same and some take longer than others to process. Given the importance of citizenship, robust and comprehensive checks must take place on each application. Unfortunately, some international checks can take a considerable amount of time and these are largely out of the control of my Department.

In just over two years the Citizenship Division of my Department has gone from processing around 12,000 applications a year to processing over 20,000 applications in 2023, and made more than 31,000 decisions in 2024.

Furthermore, my Department held 24 citizenship ceremonies last year, an increase from the 15 ceremonies held in 2023, and the 6 that were held in 2022. My Department has already held 6 ceremonies this year and will continue to hold ceremonies on a regular basis during 2025.

Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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1570. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the reason there is a delay in the processing of immigration applications, with some applications from 13 July 2023 still being processed as of 1 April 2025; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19440/25]

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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I understand that the Deputy's query relates to visa applications. Extended wait times can be frustrating for applicants and I want to assure anyone who has made an application for a visa that my Department is doing everything possible to progress these applications as quickly as possible.

In 2024, approximately 201,000 visa applications, of all types, were received by the Visa Division of my Department. This reflects an increase of 21%, compared to 2023, with over 35,000 additional applications received. My Department's Visa Division is working to meet the increased level of demand and the number of decisions issued in 2024 increased by 18%.

Processing times and decisions at the Dublin Visa Office can be checked at the following link which is updated each Tuesday:

www.irishimmigration.ie/visa-decisions/ .

The date published on the website is the oldest date of application currently being processed under a given category. However, it should be noted that the Visa team continue to process and make decisions on applications received after the published processing date. If a particular application takes longer to consider this may result in the published processing date remaining unchanged. I can assure you that this does not indicate the processing of these applications has halted overall, or that the date indicated represents a typical or median processing time.

My Department is committed to providing the best possible service to applicants. To provide greater clarity, officials in my Department are currently in the process of updating the Immigration Service website for processing times for decisions on visa applications by the Dublin visa office.

In recent months, additional resources and staff have been assigned to my Department’s Visa Division which I expect will reduce the waiting times for all applications.

Since the introduction of the Immigration Service’s new Digital Contact Centre (DCC), visa applicants can now directly check the status of their application, raise queries or submit documents in support of their visa application. They can register to use the DCC, or log in to their existing account, at