Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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488. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the process for an applicant for naturalisation who is short of the reckonable residency requirement due to their stamp 4 GNIB card renewal being delayed during Covid-19; if they can request her to grant residency due to special circumstances; if the applicant must have a live application in order to request same; if so, the way this can be achieved with the reckonable residency requirement falling short; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [44641/21]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The granting of Irish citizenship through naturalisation is governed by the provisions of the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 1956, as amended. All applications for a certificate of naturalisation are processed and assessed individually in accordance with the provisions of the Act. A determination on whether an applicant satisfies the statutory criteria attendant to naturalisation, including the residency requirement, can only be made after an application is received.

Minister Humphreys and I recently announced a final temporary extension of immigration and international protection permissions to 15 January 2022. This extension of permission will allow adequate time for everyone, who is covered by this final temporary extension, to either register or renew their permission, where that permission can be renewed, by 15 January 2022 to ensure that they have a qualifying permission to remain in the State after that date.

This final extension of immigration permissions provides that people who held a valid permission to be in the State in March 2020 are legally permitted to remain until 15 January 2022, even if their Irish Residence Permit (IRP) card has expired and they are awaiting a new one. All the other terms and conditions of the immigration permission remain the same.

Therefore, where a person held an in date immigration permission on 20 March 2020, that was reckonable for the purpose of making an application for a Certificate of Naturalisation, and has relied on the eight emergency extensions of permissions to remain in the State, and there are no reasons why that permission should not be renewed, then the period of extension from the 20 March 2020 to 15 January 2022 will be considered reckonable and meeting the criteria when submitting an application for a Certificate of Naturalisation.