Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 157: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the reason his Department does not examine naturalisation applications upon receipt to ensure that applicants meet the basic requirements, such as five years residency in the State, with the result that applicants frequently do not learn that their applications are invalid until a year or more after they are filed. [9883/05]

Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)
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The Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 2001 introduced provisions governing the type of residency which was reckonable for the purposes of making an application for naturalisation. These provisions came into effect on 30 November 2002. At the same time, the number of applications for naturalisation being received was increasing dramatically.

At that time, the process involved in examining applications at the time of receipt was considered to be too time consuming and would have involved, in many instances, checking the applicant's immigration status with the Garda national immigration bureau. Consequently, it was decided that applications would be examined and processed in chronological order so as to be fair to all applicants, not only those who did not meet the statutory residency criteria.

Additional resources have now been deployed in the citizenship section of my Department. These additional resources, coupled with an ongoing review of procedures, have enabled my officials, with effect from the beginning of April next, to examine all applications at the time of receipt to ensure compliance with the residency requirements. Applications from persons who do not have the necessary residency will be returned straight away and they will be informed of the shortfall in the residency to enable them to take steps to meet the requirements in the future.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 158: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if he will consider changing his policy of rejecting applications for naturalisation wherein the applicants fell short of the five-year residency requirement at the time of filing, even when the requirement has been met by the time the application is examined, to a policy in which these applications will be dealt with in the order they would have been received had they been filed as soon as the requirement was met. [9884/05]

Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)
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The granting of a certificate of naturalisation is predicated on a number of statutory requirements. One requirement is that the applicant has a specified period of residence "immediately before the date of application". Consequently, residence accrued after the date of application is insufficient to satisfy these requirements.