Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
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Question 127: To ask the Minister for Justice and Law Reform when application for renewal of registration cards by persons (details supplied), will issue; if same can be expedited; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38359/10]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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I wish to inform the Deputy that the first person in question was granted permission to remain in the State for a two year period in July of 2005, under the revised arrangements for non-EEA parents of Irish children born prior to 1 January 2005, commonly referred to as the IBC/05 scheme. The second person concerned has permission to remain in line with that of her husband. This permission was renewed in 2007 and recently in 2010. However, I understand that the recent renewals by the local Immigration Officer were for 3 month periods up to 12 October 2010 and 12 January 2011, due to neither person having a current passport. I should add that my Department has only very recently, on 19 October, received undated correspondence from the persons concerned in relation to their passports having expired. My officials will be in contact with the persons concerned shortly regarding their status in the State when their case file is reviewed.

I should remind the Deputy that queries in relation to the status of individual immigration cases may be made directly to INIS by Email using the Oireachtas Mail facility which has been specifically established for this purpose. The service enables up-to-date information on such cases to be obtained without the need to seek this information through the more administratively expensive Parliamentary Questions process.

Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
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Question 128: To ask the Minister for Justice and Law Reform when an application for naturalisation by a person (details supplied) will be dealt with; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38360/10]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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A valid 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 June 2008.

All valid applications are dealt with in chronological order as this is deemed to be the fairest to all applicants. The average processing time from application to decision is now at 26 months. More complicated cases can at times take more than the current average, while an element of straight forward cases can be dealt with in less than that timescale. Officials in the Citizenship Division inform me that processing of the application is ongoing and the file will be submitted to me for a decision in due course.

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. 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 it is not undervalued and is only given to persons who genuinely satisfy the necessary qualifying criteria.

I should remind the Deputy that queries in relation to the status of individual Immigration cases may be made direct to INIS by Email using the Oireachtas Mail facility which has been specifically established for this purpose. The service enables up-to-date information on such cases to be obtained without the need to seek this information through the more administratively expensive Parliamentary Questions process.