John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Question 198: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform when a decision will be made regarding an application for naturalisation made by persons (details supplied) in County Dublin. [22883/06]

Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)
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The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform may, in his absolute discretion, grant an application for a certificate of naturalisation provided certain statutory conditions are fulfilled. One of these conditions is that the applicant has had a period of one year's continuous residency in the State immediately before the date of the application and, during the eight years immediately preceding that period, has had a total residence in the State amounting to four years. Applications for certificates of naturalisation from the persons referred to in the Deputy's question were received in the Citizenship section of my Department in April 2004. These applications were examined by my officials in February 2006. Both applicants stated in their application forms that they first arrived in the State in December 1999. Since it was not possible for the couple to have met the above mentioned five year residency requirement when they applied in April 2004, their applications were deemed ineligible. However, my officials also established that the couple had the necessary residence in February 2006, when the applications were examined. In line with my Department's general policy for such cases, the couple were afforded the opportunity to make fresh applications which would be processed on their existing cases files, thereby exempting them from having to wait the full processing time again. New applications were received from the couple on 18 May 2006 and these are due to be dealt with in the near future. I will inform the Deputy and the applicants when the cases are finalised.