5121472 wrote: ↑Mon Sep 21, 2020 7:40 am
If you read earlier posts and comments, there is data to support this and this is evident from the figures published by INIS. Do some research please, before throwing comments, arguments and criticism.
We started 3 petitions with the 2 different government bodies on different matters and we got a response in all 3 of them. Many people here appreciated the fact that you started a petition, but the description you had in the petition deviates the point that you want people to resonate. A petition (especially to a Government body) should have 1 and only 1 purpose. If your intention is to ask them to get a citizenship ceremony moving, you would have to remove the bits about injustice and slowness among certain nationalities. Otherwise, how do you expect the TD's to debate the issue in the Dáil? If you have watched any Dáil or UK parliament debate, you will see that each topic is a very refined and restricted topic. They in many cases require different set of people to present data, proofs or even testify. They won't even bother discussing anything that's multifaceted. You have to attack one side at a time.
Then, you can't say 'there is data to support this' or 'this is evident from the figures published by INIS', without showing this data and figures to people. How can you expect the Dáil to respond if the petition does go through? Many empathetic TD's will be more than happy to start a debate in the Dáil, but you have to give them figures to support your view point.
If you are going down the systemic bias route, you would have to present convincing data. We used to have a contributor @markem here who makes visualised data, for example, this
post. This is a simple task - all you need is data from reputable sources or from individual surveys or response collections, like what he did here. That graph would quickly tell people that 32% did not get a decision after a year. You can get a few examples from those whose applications were delayed (e.g. contact them for a redacted copy of FOI) to prove that certain nationals' applications are 'more likely to' getting delayed for no good reason.
Ireland is not one of the best countries when it comes to government transparency (
RTE report), and the citizenship department is one of the worst area. There are many cases where people's applications get stuck for no reason, but I haven't yet been able to see any evidence on systemic bias against a certain group of people. You either have to prove your point, or take that bit out of your petition, otherwise the government will be quick enough to dismiss the petition.
