Parliamentary Questions

217. Deputy Catherine Connolly asked the Minister for Justice and Equality the number and grade of staff at the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service, INIS; the number and grade of vacancies; his views on whether the service is adequately resourced; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41312/17]

Minister for Justice and Equality (Deputy Charles Flanagan): Staff in the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service (INIS) in my Department are deployed across a wide range of activities including the broad areas of international protection and immigration processing, visa processing, citizenship, border management and policy areas of the organisation. In that context, the management of resources is kept under constant review having regard to business and operational requirements, and staff are deployed accordingly.
As with other areas of the public service we have only relatively recently moved out of a moratorium arising from the financial crisis and are now steadily building staff resource capacity within approved budget limits to meet the demands for services. By its nature, this is a difficult process but I am satisfied that every effort is being made to adequately resource INIS to meet the increasing demand.
The current staff breakdown by grade across INIS, including officers in the International Protection Office and the International Protection Appeals Tribunal is as follows: