Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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Question 547: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if he has received the file in respect of a person (details supplied) in County Dublin, as indicated in his reply of 11 February 2009, who has made an application for naturalisation; the reason for the delay in this case; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11633/09]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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An application for a certificate of naturalisation from the person referred to in the Deputy's Question was received in the Citizenship Division of my Department in April 2007.

Officials in that Section inform me that processing of the application is at an advanced stage and the file will be submitted to me for a decision shortly. The average processing time from application to decision is now at 23 months. More complicated cases can at times take more than the current average while an element of straight forward cases are now being dealt with in less than that time scale. Applications for certificates of naturalisation are dealt with in chronological order as this is deemed to be the fairest to all applicants.

There is a limit to the reduction in the processing time that can be achieved as applications for naturalisation must be processed in a way which preserves the necessary checks and balances to ensure that the status of citizenship is not undervalued and is only given to persons who genuinely satisfy the necessary qualifying criteria.