A process established 10 weeks ago has allowed 1,200 people to receive Irish citizenship recently. A statutory declaration process has replaced the necessity for people who have applied for citizenship to attend citizenship ceremonies, which have been stopped for the duration of Covid-19.
Another 1,159 have also returned their signed statutory declarations to the Department and will received their naturalization certificates in the post. The Minister intends to extend the statutory declaration process to a further 2,500 people, who can now can avail of the new Covid-19 citizenship application process. 6,500 people will also be able to avail of this process by the end of June.
“eVetting” has also replaced the manual Garda vetting process, which has increased the speed of the citizenship application process.