Mr. Pádraig Dalton:

One of the things we discussed here this morning is the value of official statistics. At the time of the 1926 census when the data was collected, the guarantee that was given to householders was that the data would never be disclosed. That was changed, with the introduction of the Statistics Act in 1993, to strike a balance between genealogy and confidentiality. The balance that was struck at that time was the 100-year rule and with good reason. One of the reasons people comply with the requirement to provide data to the CSO is our guarantee on confidentiality. If we breach the trust of our respondents we put in jeopardy the type of data that members have all welcomed here this morning. The law has been changed once on this issue. First of all respondents were told that their data would never be given; now it will be given after 100 years. We cannot change that again - once can be seen as a one-off incident but twice would be seen as the emergence of a trend in terms of the dilution of the guarantee on confidentiality. We are always treading that line between the need to provide as much information as possible while at the same time protecting the confidentiality of our respondents. As I said, it was agreed in 1993 when the Statistics Act was being debated that the appropriate balance was 100 years.