Pádraig Rice (Cork South-Central, Social Democrats)
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655. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the percentage of acceptance rate for naturalisation, by country from 2020-2024; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [65708/25]

Pádraig Rice (Cork South-Central, Social Democrats)
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656. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the average length of time, by number of weeks, for naturalisation applications to be approved for citizens from Egypt; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [65709/25]

Pádraig Rice (Cork South-Central, Social Democrats)
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657. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the average wait time, by number of weeks for a naturalisation application to be approved for citizens from Morocco; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [65710/25]

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 655 to 657, inclusive, together.

The naturalisation application processing times of individual nationalities are not recorded by my Department. My Department also does not provide a grant rate per nationality.

I want to assure anyone who has an application for naturalisation submitted, that my Department is doing everything possible to progress applications as quickly as possible.

My Department has 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. This digitisation has facilitated a record number of citizenship decisions made last year. In just over two years, 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 reducing processing times. The median processing time for a decision on an application in 2024 was 8 months. This is a significant decrease from the median processing time of 15 months in 2023 and 19 months in 2022.

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 19 ceremonies this year, and the next ceremonies are taking place on 1 and 2 December 2025 at the INEC Killarney.

It is important to note, however, that no two naturalisation applications are the same and some take longer than others to process. Given the importance of citizenship, robust and comprehensive checks must take place on each application. Unfortunately some checks, such as international checks, can take a considerable amount of time and these are largely outside of the control of my Department.

For that reason, while I expect that, going forward, most applicants will receive a decision within one year, this cannot be guaranteed in the case of applications made in any specific year.

The nationalities of those who were granted citizenship and who have received their certificate of naturalisation from 2020, up to 10 November 2025, is outlined in the attached file. It should be noted that decisions issued in any year may relate to applications which were received in previous years due to the time taken to process applications.