The Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service (INIS) has grown considerably in scale and scope since it was established in 2005. INIS now comprises approximately one third of all staff in the Department of Justice and Equality, and process over 250,000 applications a year – for visas, registration of non-EEA nationals, residence permissions, international protection and citizenship. In addition, up to 16 million passengers are expected to be immigrated by INIS through Dublin Airport.
1. Maintain and enhance cooperation with other State agencies to ensure a more cohesive approach to immigration/protection related matters and to ensure needs and rights of immigrants are met and respected and that the immigration system reflects wider public policy priorities.
2. Consider the possibility of combining the new Irish Residency Permit card with the Public Service Card and integration of re-entry visa with registration functions.
3. Implement new technologies to improve service delivery to customers including new on-line self service capabilities and enhanced INIS communications through website and all communication channels.
4. Procurement of new appointment and queue management system for the Registration Office and re-entry visas and move away from reliance on paper based manual staff processing to decision making supported by technological advancements.
5. Develop a Brexit strategy in relation to the CTA, plan for “no-deal” scenario. Evaluate and agree a further roll out of the BIVS (British Irish Visa scheme) and prepare a plan for the registration of UK nationals.
6. Installation of 20 eGates at Dublin Airport with CCTV and watchlist integration and additional eGates for transfer facility. (Registered Travel Programme) of eGates development.
7. Continue cooperation with the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB) on investigations through Operation Vantage, targeting individuals suspected of sham marriages and in particular those facilitating such activities.
8. Eliminate backlogs, a renewed focus on eliminating processing backlogs in key business areas, and particularly applications for international protection and EU Treaty Rights. For example, it is planned to reach the stage of new international protection cases being given a first instance decision within a nine month time frame by the end of 2019, assuming increased staffing levels and no change to the trend in application numbers.
9. All Heads of Section to prepare a list of skills/competencies required by staff to undertake the work in their sections and a Certificate in Immigration Studies to be made available for immigration staff with participation in King’s Inn Immigration and Asylum law course.
10. Translate essential material from the website into other languages and translate signage in public offices into key foreign languages.
Read Full INIS Service Improvement Plan 2018-2020.
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