Dr. Frances McGinnity:

Given the fact that the time-use survey was in 2005, it is fair to say paid work is measured on a regular basis in Ireland but care and unpaid housework is much less commonly measured. One step towards valuing it is to measure it. Other countries have regular time-use surveys, in which people fill out diaries of what they do each day. We did this in 2005. The idea was that a large time-use survey for caring and housework would be conducted on a regular basis but the recession came and everything stopped. There is a strong argument for a regular time-use survey to complement the caring survey by the CSO but there is, as far as we are aware, no intention to carry them out at the moment.