Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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Question 588: To ask the Minister for Justice and Law Reform when a decision will be made on an application for naturalisation in respect of persons (details supplied) in County Meath; the reason for the delay; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1259/11]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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Valid applications for a certificate of naturalisation from the persons referred to in the Deputy's Question were received in the Citizenship Division of my Department in February 2008.

The applications are currently being processed in the normal way with a view to establishing whether the applicants meet the statutory conditions for the granting of naturalisation and will be submitted to me for decision in due course.

The average time from application to decision is 26 months. It is not possible to provide more specific information in an individual case as processing requirements and time taken to carry out necessary checks vary from case to case. 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.