James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)

I acknowledge that in the past there were significant delays in processing citizenship applications. What the Minister, the officials in the Department and I have done to streamline matters and introduce a new processing system with the online application form and e-vetting has led to a significant change in the processing time relating to citizenship applications. I am confident that by the end of the year we will be in a situation where processing times will be even shorter. By next year, the aim is to have the processing time down to under 12 months. We will continue to work on that.

There will always be individual cases in respect of which particular challenges will arise. I am not referring to the particular case the Deputy mentioned but there are individual cases. We will certainly continue to get processing times down to a reasonable level.

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