John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State will revert to the committee.

The simplification of CSO forms is an issue I am interested in, both in terms of the census and the questions that are being asked. An example I will give relates to imports and exports. It is as though some of the forms are sent to a sector, for example, the transport industry, but the operators find it difficult to relate to them. They want to answer the questions but the questions are not directed specifically to the type of transport they are providing or goods they are importing or exporting. Therefore, the breakdown can be slightly skewed by virtue of the fact that some people will tick the boxes just to comply with the requirement to send back the form. If we go to the bother of collecting that information, we should certainly simplify the process of collection, both on census night with those forms and in the context of business in order to try to relate the forms to the particular sector within the business community on which we are reporting.