Mairéad Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)
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190. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality if he will provide clarity for a person (details supplied) on the steps they can take to apply for citizenship; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40145/25]

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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All applications for a certificate of naturalisation are assessed individually in accordance with the provisions of the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 1956, as amended. A determination on whether an applicant satisfies the statutory criteria for naturalisation can only be made after an application is received.

Applicants are required to have 5 years reckonable residence in the State prior to making an application, except for spouses of Irish nationals where the requirement is 3 years. In all cases, the final 12 months must be continuous residence in the State with up to 70 days allowed to facilitate foreign travel for business family or holiday purposes.

It is open to the person concerned to submit an application for a certificate of naturalisation if they satisfy the relevant criteria.

Detailed information on how to apply for naturalisation and other resources is available on my Department’s Immigration website here: www.irishimmigration.ie/how-to-become-a-citizen/.

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

This digitisation has facilitated a record number of citizenship decisions made last 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 made more than 31,000 decisions in 2024.

I am pleased to inform the Deputy that these changes are also dramatically reducing processing times. The median processing time for a decision on an application in 2024 was 8 months. This is a significant improvement from the median processing time of 15 months in 2023, 19 months in 2022, and 24 months in 2021.

I expect that going forward, the majority of applicants will continue to receive a decision within one year, however, it is important to note that no two naturalisation applications are the same and some take longer than others to process.

Furthermore, 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 13 ceremonies this year.