Время ожидания натурализации

[tadpole]

Я недавно писал, что знакомый, подавший на гражданство около года назад, звонил в соответствующий департамент министерства юстиции и ему было сказано, что очередь на рассмотрение теперь два года. Искренне заинтересовавшись, почему процесс настолько затянут, я написал письмо в министерство и попросил в рамках Freedom of Information Act ответить на несколько вопросов. Ниже привожу ответы, надеюсь, что информация будет интересна.

Если у кого-то есть конструктивные предложения, что можно сделать для ускорения процесса, прошу высказываться. Неконструктивного критицизма в адрес всего министерства и департамента натурализации в частности, а еже с ними мирового бюрократизма, у меня и самого хватает. Давайте думать, что можно реально сделать, чтобы изменить ситуацию.


7 October 2004

Dear Mr. Avdonin,

I refer to the request which you have made under the Freedom of Information Act, 1997 for records held by this department. You have requested information regarding applications for naturalisation.

Decision

A decision on your request was made by Mr Gerry McConnell on 6 October 2004. Is has been decided to provide the requested information to you. Mr McConnell has prepared the following responses to the questions set out in your letter.

Q: A detailed explanation of the exact process of considering an application for naturalisation employed by Citizenship Section of the Department of Justice. Please advise on each step and time required for it to be completed.

The length of time spent processing each application will be depend on a number of factors such as whether the application is correctly filled out and the completeness of the information/documentation provided in the first instance. Mr McConnell has set out the general position as follows:

The application is first assigned a reference number. A file cover is prepared and details of the application are entered on a computer record. A letter of acknowledgement is issued and the file is placed in storage with other files to await processing in chronological order. This part of the process will usually be completed in the week after arrival of the application.

The second examination of the file is more comprehensive. Residency is checked as is financial and other background information. It may be necessary to seek additional information from the applicant at this stage and the applicant’s details will be forwarded to the Gardai for a report on the person’s background. Other enquiries may be made if it is considered necessary in the particular instance. This part of the process will vary and can take several weeks to finalise.

Once everything is in place, the case is submitted to the Minister for a decision. This usually takes a matter of days. Once a decision is made, the applicant is notified in writing of the decision.

The above timescales are very general and usually vary from case to case. While the actual processing of a case is not that time consuming, the lengthy processing time is caused by the volume of applications being received. The statistics below give some idea of the increase in the volume of applications being received in recent years.

Q: How mane Department employees are dedicated to the processing of the applications for Irish citizenship by naturalisation?

Seventeen members of staff, both full and part time, are involved in processing applications for naturalisation.

Q: Statistics of the applications processed during the last five years, i.e. how many applications were submitted and how many processed each year.

Year - New Applications - Certificates Issued
2000 - 1004 - 125
2001 - 1431 - 1012
2002 - 3574 - 1332
2003 - 3580 - 1664
2004 (end of August) - 2777 - 934

Q: Current length of the queue of the applications. When the applications that are being currently considered were submitted?

Citizenship Section has recently commenced processing applications that were lodged in March 2003. It is anticipated that these will not be finalised until early next year. At the time of preparing this reply, there were 3,359 cases awaiting processing before your application.

Note: my application was submitted at the end of February, 2004.

Q: What is being done or planned to be done in the near feature to improve the situation?

Over 650 staff members are employed by this in the provision of services for or in respect of non-nationals. Unfortunately, it has been the case that over 70% of those staff are engaged full time in activities associated with the actual processing of asylum claims or in the provision of support for asylum applicants. However, the major reduction in the numbers of asylum applicants has presented an opportunity to re-focus those resources on areas of service provision for non-nationals which are under resourced at this point in time. The Citizenship area is one of the areas which will benefit from that process.

Yours sincerely,
MAEVE HOGAN
Freedom of Information Officer