Vol. 527 No. 3
348 Mr. Kenny asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the reason a person (details supplied) in County Mayo who made an application for Irish citizenship has been informed that his application will take 18 months to process in view of the fact that he has been living here for the past ten years and is married to an Irish citizen; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28664/00]
The person referred to by the Deputy has made an application for citizenship by way of post-nuptial declaration. It was received in my Department on 5 September 2000 and is currently being processed. Due to the large volume of applications in hand at present, such cases are taking approximately 13 months to finalise.
Section 8 of the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act, 1956, as amended by the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act, 1986, provides that a non-national can make a declaration in the manner prescribed by the Minister accepting Irish citizenship as post-nuptial citizenship, after three years of marriage to an Irish citizen, who is an Irish citizen otherwise than by naturalisation or by post-nuptial citizenship or by honorary citizenship, provided that the marriage is subsisting at the date of lodgement of the declaration and that the couple are living together as husband and wife. It should be noted that there is no residency requirement.
Extra resources are currently being allocated to the immigration and citizenship division of my Department with a view to, inter alia, reducing the time involved in processing naturalisation applications. These resources will impact considerably on present delays.
Questions Nos. 349 and 350 taken with Question No. 318.
