Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent)
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Question 233: To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality if he will consider revoking the citizenship application fee of €175 or reducing such fee, to those immigrants applying for naturalisation certificates in view of the fact that this fee is non-refundable on top of the €950 processing fee immigrants need to pay; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40430/11]

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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Last month, I signed into law Statutory Instrument 569/11, which introduced an application fee of €175 for applications for a certificate of naturalisation.

Managing and dealing with incomplete applications consumes scarce processing resources and the application fee is designed to recoup some of the costs associated with the application process. The application fee is also intended to help cover costs associated with the processing of unsuccessful applications that often consume more processing time and resources than successful applications, but which heretofore attracted no fee.

I might point out to the Deputy that the current certification fees, which have not changed since August 2008, do not recoup the full cost of processing.