Eamon Scanlon (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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283. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality if he is aware of IT issues with the Irish Immigration Portal in April 2025, whereby citizenship applicants were requested to resubmit documentation already uploaded, including a second payment of the €175 fee; if he will examine a specific case where an applicant (details supplied) was requested to restart the process from scratch; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38558/25]

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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I can inform the Deputy that, in the case he referenced, a request for further documentation issued due to a technical error. I understand this error occurred on a small number of cases and is in the process of being rectified.

My Department has received a resubmission from the person in question and their application continues to be processed. I have been informed that a second request for payment of the €175 application fee did not issue.

As part of my Department’s continued commitment to improving its services, the online citizenship application process was introduced in October 2023. This has made the application process considerably easier and more accessible for applicants - facilitating the completion of relevant forms, payments and submission of their application online.

These improvements, along with the introduction of online payments and eVetting, are having a positive impact on naturalisation processing times. The length of time taken to process an application has been reduced from 15 months in 2023, to 8 months in 2024.

My Department continues to monitor customer experience and is committed to its continuous improvement. The functionality of all our online platforms are under constant review.

As an Oireachtas member, the Deputy can also request the status of individual immigration cases by e-mail, using the Oireachtas Mail facility at: IMoireachtasmail@justice.ie, 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 Question process.