Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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341. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of citizenship applications still without a decision who had applied in in each of the years 2020 to 2022, broken down by nationality of applicants. [38885/24]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I understand the extended wait times can be frustrating for applicants. I want to assure anyone who has an application for naturalisation submitted that the Citizenship Division of my Department is doing everything possible to progress applications as quickly as possible.

It is important to note that no two applications are the same and some take longer than others to process. Unfortunately, it is the case that some international checks can take a considerable amount of time and are largely out of the control of my Department.

Since then, Citizenship Division have taken a significant number of steps to speed up the process for applicants. These included introducing an online digital application, online payments, and the introduction of eVetting. I am pleased to inform the Deputy that these changes are dramatically reducing processing times.

The number of applications received in 2020-2022, and of which applications where a decision has not yet been made, is in the below table.

The nationalities of those active applications are listed in the enclosed attachment.