Marie Sherlock (Dublin Central, Labour)
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338. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality when a person (details supplied) will receive his citizenship certificate; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14874/25]

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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I can advise the Deputy that the person concerned recently attended one of the Citizenship Ceremonies hosted by my Department last month. All certificates of naturalisation for the attendees of these ceremonies are currently in the process of being printed and will be issued via registered post.

I want to assure anyone who is waiting for their certificate of naturalisation that they do not need to renew their immigration permission whilst they await a certificate. I am advised that introducing a parallel temporary certification document at this stage would divert resources from the process of issuing the Certificates.

By not issuing certificates on the day of the ceremonies, my Department has been able to simplify the administrative steps required to be completed at registration desks. This in turn has made it possible to significantly increase the number of attendees who can attend any one day of Ceremonies.

My Department held 24 citizenship ceremonies last year, an increase from the 15 ceremonies held in 2023, and the 6 that were held in 2022. My Department has already held 6 ceremonies this year and will continue to hold more ceremonies on a regular basis during 2025.

These steps are part of an overall programme of work to speed up the naturalisation process for applicants. This includes introducing an online digital application, online payments, and the introduction of eVetting.

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 made more than 31,000 decisions in 2024.

As an Oireachtas member, you can also request the status of individual immigration cases 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.