Family Reunification Dail Éireann — 2026-07-01 ============================================================ Aindrias Moynihan (FF), Cork North-West It is right and proper that there would be proper checks and verification and a thorough examination of all of the different applications. The experience that I am hearing from my constituents is that it takes approximately 18 months or more. I understand that there is a target of 12 months. Even that target seems lengthy, and it is difficult for families. Is it the case that it is slow because there are not enough people to deal with the backlog? Is there a need for additional staffing to clear a short-term backlog and to prioritise people who have been waiting the longest? It is a pressure on those people who have been hired to do critical work in our communities. That pressure will often put them thinking on whether they should be going back home and leaving a skills gap that we need to fill here as well. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-07-01/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:06+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-07-01