Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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281. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the progress to date in determination of application for naturalisation in the case of a person (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [42342/24]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I can advise the Deputy based on the information supplied, it has unfortunately not been possible to locate the application for the person referred to.

Citizenship Division are currently registering applications received from May 2024. When an application is registered, a Personal ID and Citizenship application reference number is issued to the applicant.

When an online application for Naturalisation is submitted an auto-receipt is emailed to the applicant.

The Citizenship Division of my Department have taken a significant number of steps to speed up the Naturalisation process for applicants. Including introducing an online digital application, online payments, and the introduction of eVetting.

I am pleased to inform the Deputy that these changes are significantly reducing processing times. I expect that going forward the vast majority of applicants will receive a decision within one year.

In just over two years the Citizenship Division of my Department has gone from processing around 12,000 applications a year to processing over 20,000 applications in 2023 and has already made more than 24,000 decisions to date in 2024.

Last year, Citizenship Division more than doubled the number of ceremonies available to applicants with 15 held over the course of 2023. This was a significant increase on 6 Citizenship Ceremonies held in 2022. To date in 2024, my Department has hosted 17 ceremonies with over 14,000 attendees, with further ceremonies planned for later in the year.

Queries in relation to the status of individual immigration cases may be made directly to my Department by e-mail using the Oireachtas Mail facility at: IMoireachtasmail@justice.ie, which has been specifically established for this purpose. This service enables up to date information on such cases to be obtained without the need to seek information by way of the Parliamentary Question process. The Deputy may consider using the e-mail service except in the cases where the response is, in the Deputy's view, inadequate or too long awaited.