Thousands of people across Ireland are being forced to wait two years or more to have their request for Irish citizenship processed – leaving many in an "incredibly stressful" situation.
Minister for Justice Helen McEntee confirmed this week that more than one in four applications for Irish citizenship are taking more than two years to process.
Speaking in the Dail, the Minister said her department is dealing with 21,300 applications for citizenship – with 5,378 still in process since the application was submitted.
Ms McEntee blamed the ongoing impact of Covid-19 – as well as an infamous High Court case on citizenship from 2019 – for the delay in processing thousands of applications in recent months.
She added that the combination of the High Court case and the pandemic has cost the Department of Justice more than six months in processing time.
The delays are causing "huge uncertainty and worry" for many across the country, according to Social Democrat TD Cian O'Callaghan, who raised the matter in the Dail this week.
"It can be incredibly stresssful for people who are waiting, because they can't find out how long it's going to take," he told the Irish Mirror.
"Because they're in a position of applying as well, they feel they can't really say anything about it or speak out about it because they're afraid then that could lead to their application being declined.
"It's just not something that's prioritised, because the people in the situation don't have a voice, and they're not able to kick up about it, because they're looking for their application to be considered.
"It's surely just a case of putting in place a small amount of additional administrative resources to get this sorted out."
Applications for citizenship by naturalisation are decided by the Immigration Service Delivery on behalf of the Minister for Justice.
Applications cost €175, with those who are successful potentially facing another charge of €950.
