Mr. Pádraig Dalton:

This is definitely an important conversation. From our perspective, the key questions are on who is the appropriate authority to collect the information and for what will the information be used. If the CSO collects information from anyone, that immediately rules out the ability to use the information for any purpose other than statistical purposes. When we are involved it is quite a limited remit and the outputs are quite limited. All we can do is produce aggregate data. I do not know the answer to this because it is moving into policy and that is uncomfortable because the CSO does not speak on policy. We can speak on data-related issues. The question is whether there is a need for a broader range of data to be used beyond purely statistical purposes. If there is, the question is whether it should be collected elsewhere and then the CSO, through its powers under the Statistics Act, can go to the data source and extract the information it needs to compile aggregate statistical data to inform the debate.