Hi everone, I am Italian (EEA then) and in the process of applying for British citizenship.
I recently passed my "life in the UK" test (yeaaaah...thanks also to the online tests of this website!).

My questions are:

1) I have been in the UK since 2002. As my 5 years of continuous permanence in UK ended after 30th of April 2006 I do not need to apply for our famous ILR to proceed for naturalization, is it correct?

2) I work and pay taxes following PAYE (pay as you earn). A few months ago I paid to Inland Revenue a shortfall of my NI contributions because my earnings for 2007/2008 were low and I voluntary wanted to make up my NI contributions for state pension.
I am sure that there is also other shortfall for 2008/2009 but HMrevenue did not send me a letter yet (it will arrive between september and January if I am not wrong). Ok, my question is: do I necessarily need to make up my NI contributions to be more confident that my application for naturalization is accepted?
I ask you this because by calling the HM revenue NI contributions office I have been told that this national insurance contributions could not be related to citizenship but they relate only to basic state pension.

Please shed some light on these two aspects

Thanks and regards