Seán Kyne (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Central Statistics Office, CSO, is responsible for the collection, processing and publication of official statistics on economic, social and general conditions in Ireland. Alongside satisfying the statistical requirements of Government, the information published by the CSO is also used by an extensive variety of public bodies, businesses, third-level colleges, research institutes and the general public. There is a significant international dimension to the work of the CSO. The EU institutions, the International Monetary Fund, IMF, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD and other international bodies are all important users of official statistics. These bodies also have a significant role in defining and monitoring standards for the compilation of comparable information. The CSO subscribes to the standards set out in the UN's Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics and the European Statistics Code of Practice.

The CSO net allocation in 2018 amounted to €48.746 million. The net allocation for 2019 is €54.714 million. The funding provided reflects the Government’s commitment to allowing the CSO to actively respond to significantly increased user demand for the development of new outputs. It also supports the development of the Irish Statistical System, ISS, in line with obligations under national and EU law and consistent with Government strategy for the development of trusted and robust official statistics.

As part of preparing for the census of population in 2021, the office will have to source a census processing system in 2019 and progress the development of a digital census enumerator record book that will replace paper recording and tracking. Technology systems support is increasingly required at every stage of the production of the CSO’s progressively more complex and varied outputs. The funding will allow for the upgrade of legacy office systems and improve digitisation of data analytics that are aligned to both the public service ICT strategy and the Government data strategy. The CSO will commence scoping the development of a significant new national survey on the prevalence of sexual violence in Ireland. The Growing Up in Ireland, GUI, survey is the national longitudinal study of children and youth. The GUI study was started in 2006 and the CSO has been requested to take over responsibility for GUI from 2023. Planning for this will commence in 2019.

Since 2008, the CSO has continued to reduce the response burden of its non-agricultural business surveys, as measured through the response burden barometer. A decrease of 41.3% was measured between 2008 and 2017, exceeding the target reduction of 25% over this timeframe. The CSO vote for 2019 provides for a total of 825 staff. This represents an increase from 801 in 2018 and reflects the cyclical nature of the work of the office.

I commend the values and principles which inform the CSO's work. The CSO makes an important contribution to Ireland's public policy by providing a high quality and, most importantly, independent statistical service.