Vol. 445 No. 6
187 Mr. D. McDowell asked the Minister for Justice the average time taken by her Department to make a decision in relation to an application for naturalisation; and the number of applications which have been outstanding for more than six months. [298/94]
Each application for naturalisation is considered in accordance with the statutory requirements. The time taken to process each application, therefore, is the minimum time needed to complete inquiries which are essential to ensure that the statutory requirements are satisfied. In addition, there is a backlog of about 1,000 cases, most of which have been outstanding for over six months. In these circumstances, it is difficult to determine what is an average time for processing an individual application. However, I am informed that an examination of a small sample of cases earlier this year where certificates had issued indicated an average processing time of 14 months.
