Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

If the Senator gets someone to provide €4 million or €5 million, the former England manager might take on the job for Finn Harps.

Senator Burke asked an important question. We are still getting through the backlog of citizenship applications which built up and I believe we will have substantially dealt with it in the next two or three months. There is an exceptional group of applications where particular security issues arise and have to be addressed because of the countries of origin of the individuals concerned. In the context of that group, which we have been examining, it may take us until the end of the year to get through it. I expect that anyone who makes a citizenship application by May or June and no exceptional issues of security arise because of his or her country of origin will be in the space I predicted some time ago, namely, the application will be determined within a six month period.

As I have stated to Members of both Houses, if there are some people who are stuck in the system, have been here for a long time, are in important jobs and whose circumstances are being made very difficult because of the unfortunate delays that have occurred in the manner in which the scheme was previously administered, we will try to address their individual circumstances if they are brought to my attention. We cannot do this for 6,000 or 7,000 individuals but we have done so where it has been necessary.

We have processed an enormous number of applications. I became Minister on 9 March 2011 and when we reach 9 March of this year I expect that we will have processed between 23,000 and 25,000 applications in the previous 12 month period. In 2010, just under 8,000 applications were processed. We are coming to terms with this issue.

I place on record my thanks to officials in my Department who have done so much work in this area. They have been put under much pressure by me to process applications and have done an outstanding job in officiating at and doing all the administrative work necessary on the days of each of the citizenship ceremonies that have been held.