We were already aware of the backlogs because some had occurred in 2009-2010. We were not able to clear them up because the number of requests we received continued to increase every year. That explains in part the lengthy delays in processing certain types of requests.
Very old requests often go unprocessed because we are unable to answer them for various reasons. Often, this leads to the types of delays in processing that people talk about, delays of hundreds of days. This year, we have allocated resources specifically to deal with the backlogs, while focusing at the same time on current requests.