Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 132: To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the position and progress made to date in the matter of determination of residency/naturalisation entitlement, the further requirements to be met in such regard if any in the case of a person (details supplied) in Dublin 24; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24790/12]

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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The person concerned was granted temporary permission to remain in the State in 2000, under the arrangements then in place for the non-EEA parents of Irish born children. This permission was renewed on a regular basis and is currently valid until 29 August, 2015.

I am advised by the Citizenship Division of the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service (INIS) that an application for a certificate of naturalisation was received from the person referred to by the Deputy in August, 2010. Section 15 of the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act, 1956, as amended, provides that the Minister may, in his absolute discretion, grant a certificate of naturalisation provided certain statutory conditions are fulfilled. One such condition is that the applicant intends in good faith to continue to reside in the State after naturalisation. As the person referred to by the Deputy stated on her application form that she did not intend to reside in the State after naturalisation, it was considered that she did not comply with this condition. Consequently, the application was deemed ineligible.

A further application for a certificate of naturalisation was received in the Citizenship Section of my Department in November 2010. On examination of the application submitted, it was determined that the application be returned in its entirety to the person concerned for further attention in November, 2010. In order to be fair to all applicants, only valid applications can be considered. To date no new application has been received.

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.