Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 365: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the reason for the approximate two month delay between the time a naturalisation application is referred to him for a decision and the decision being made and notified to the applicant; the procedures taken when an application is referred to him for a decision; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27718/09]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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The Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act, 1956, as amended provides that 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. There are currently over 16,000 applications for naturalisation with the Citizenship Division of this Department that are still awaiting a decision. This is primarily due to the significant increase in the volume of applications received in the last number of years. In 2002 there were 3,500 applications whereas in 2008, the number of such applications was 10,885. This upward trend seems set to continue and it is anticipated that applications for naturalisation will increase to over 15,000 in the present year.

Recently, substantial increased resources have been made available to this Department in order to reduce backlogs and provide a better quality service to all applicants. This has also had a positive impact on processing times. The average processing time from application to decision for the generality of valid applications for certificates of naturalisation is now at twenty three months. The Division is currently commencing further processing of applications received in early 2008.

The length of time taken to process each application should not be classified as a delay, as the length of time taken for any application to be decided is purely a function of the time taken to carry out necessary checks and the time taken waiting for resources to become available to perform those checks. In practice, a necessary period of time elapses while files that are finished processing have submissions prepared, those submissions are batched for transmission to the Minister's Office, decided upon and batched for return to Citizenship Division for the issuing of decision letters.

I am sure that the Deputy will appreciate that a certificate of naturalisation is an exceptional and important document that facilitates a non-national becoming a citizen of Ireland. Therefore, 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. The procedures involved have been developed and refined over a number of years and the Minister is satisfied that they are necessary to maintain the integrity of the naturalisation process.

The increased resources that have been allocated to this area have resulted in a considerable improvement in processing times over the past year, even though the number of applications for a certificate of naturalisation has continued to see significant growth. However, as I have pointed out, 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.