An application for a certificate of naturalisation from the person referred to in the Deputy's Question was received in the Citizenship Section of my Department in September 2007.
Officials in that Section are currently processing applications received in late 2005 and have approximately 13,500 applications on hand to be dealt with before that of the person concerned. These are generally dealt with in chronological order as this is deemed to be the fairest to all applicants.
However, I understand that the person in question is married to an Irish national and every effort is made to ensure those applications are dealt with as quickly as possible.