Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

That is very positive, and it should be the aim. It is a matter of making sure it happens.

Regarding workflows in the Department, there have been backlogs in respect of a number of immigration permissions. The Minister of State referred to citizenship applications and the processing of asylum applications. The numbers have risen in all these areas. I suppose only so much can be done at times, but we need to make sure that decisions are made much faster.

There has been a great deal of commentary about the speeding up the processing of asylum applications. Even in cases where countries are included on the list of safe countries or the lists for the fast processing of applications, are we guaranteeing that applications are being processed within three months? I am informed that when this happens, it leads to a reduction of almost 50%, even more in some instances, in the number of people applying.

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