Between 2000 and 2003, the number of applications for naturalisation and declarations of post-nuptial citizenship being received increased by 250% and 80% respectively. Notwithstanding these increases, the processing time for such applications and declarations was reduced from two and a half years and 12 months at the start of 2001 to 18 months and nine months respectively at the end of 2003.
There is no general policy applied which prioritises applications on the basis of nationality, duration of stay in the State and so forth. However, there may be circumstances in an individual case which require a greater level of investigation than other cases. In some cases, delay can arise as a result of failure on the part of an individual applicant to respond to queries.