Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Fine Gael)
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Question 351: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if he will expedite the processing of a citizenship application by a person (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17564/09]

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 August 2006. Applications for certificates of naturalisation are dealt with in chronological order as this is deemed to be the fairest to all applicants. Additional resources were allocated to the Citizenship Division of my Department to enable certain categories of applicant to be dealt with more expeditiously. These include refugees, spouses of Irish citizens and minors.

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 timescale. 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.