For those who don't otherwise follow the Oireachtas parliamentary questions, for many months the "standard response" from the Minister for Justice included the following statement:
Based on these measures, the Department's objective is to achieve an improved timeframe of 6-9 months for decisions on a majority of applications during 2022.
Unfortunately, the new "standard response" appears to have dropped that unceremoniously. One can always try to be optimistic, but I would venture to guess the reason is that they have no hope anymore of hitting that improved timeframe. If only there were any actual accountability - but it appears that is too much to ask for...