Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Question 289: To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the position regarding an application for naturalisation in respect of a person (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6488/11]

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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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 February 2010.

The application is being processed in the normal way with a view to establishing whether the applicant meets the statutory conditions for the granting of naturalisation and will be submitted to me for decision in due course. While the average time from application to decision is 25 months, processing requirements and time taken to carry out necessary checks vary from case to case.

I should remind the Deputy that queries in relation to the status of individual Immigration cases may be made direct to INIS by e-mail 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.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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Question 290: To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the current backlog in processing applications for naturalisation; when applications currently being processed were originally received by the Immigration Service; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6493/11]

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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I am informed by the Citizenship Division of the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service (INIS) that the Division is currently commencing further processing of applications received in mid 2009.

The average processing time from application to decision for the generality of valid applications for a certificate of naturalisation is currently 25 months and this has been maintained despite the substantial increases in the volume of applications received in recent years.

The granting of Irish citizenship through naturalisation is an honour not an entitlement. Applications must be processed in a way which preserves the necessary checks and balances to ensure that it is not undervalued and is given only to persons who satisfy the necessary qualifying criteria.

In accordance with the commitment in the Programme for Government I have requested my officials to explore options for the more efficient processing and determination of citizenship applications within a reasonable time. My intention is to reduce the processing time in this area to the greatest possible extent within the resource envelope available for this work.