Mr. Cormac Halpin:

I thank the committee for the invitation to the CSO to attend the committee meeting to consider disability proofing and data. I pass on the apologies of the director general, Mr. Pádraig Dalton, who could not attend today because of a pre-existing work commitment abroad. I am senior statistician for census outputs and am joined today by my colleagues, Mr. Kieran Culhane, senior statistician in charge of the statistical system co-ordination division and by Ms Fiona O’Riordan, senior statistician with responsibility for social data collection in the CSO.

As Ireland’s national statistical institute, the CSO is an independent office under the Statistics Act 1993 and provides independent statistical information to support and promote understanding and debate across Government, business and society. Data are a modern-day natural resource and the CSO’s role is to extract value from those data. Official statistics are a public good and an essential input to creating an informed society for the people of Ireland. Increasingly, the CSO is providing a suite of data and statistical services to the broader civil and public service. This move towards a cross-organisational, co-ordinator role across the entire civil and public service is mandated in both the European regulation on statistics and in the Statistics Act 1993. There is an ever-increasing demand for our products, data and services from across the civil and public service, as organisations work to extract the insights and evidence within data to inform policy development.

Disability statistics provide a wealth of information about the lives and experiences of people living with a disability, ranging from impairment, difficulties in undertaking and participating in activities, as well as the barriers they face in their lives. Statistics on disability are highly relevant, from a fundamental rights perspective. To meet national user needs in this area, the CSO uses data from both administrative sources and statistical surveys to compile a range of outputs disaggregated by disability related characteristics.

Results are disseminated in a highly accessible manner through a range of channels, including statistical reports and research microdata files.

The CSO’s census of population is our largest primary data collection activity reaching every household in the State with the delivery and collection of more than 1.9 million forms to households and communal establishments in 2022. The production of results for census 2022 is expected to commence in May and we are committed to producing a wide range of statistical tables generated from the data on disability. These tables will be available for all users on the CSO’s Px-Stat database tool on the office’s website, www.cso.ie.

Over 50 detailed tables relating to disability were produced from census 2016 and at least this number will be produced from census 2022. These tables will be supported by a dedicated thematic publication on disability that will interpret the data and provide clear visualisations and maps to assist users in understanding the results and trends in the data. The CSO will also continue to provide a service to users to produce bespoke statistical tables on disability as well as assistance in navigating the online statistical tools so users can fully exploit the wide range of data that will be available.

These tables are possible because of the inclusion of two questions dedicated to disability and related difficulties on the census questionnaire. These questions were first included in 2002 and their framing has evolved over time in consultation with key stakeholders. The questions were expanded for census 2022 following detailed discussions with a dedicated subgroup of stakeholders during the public consultation on questionnaire content. This facilitated the capture of additional data relating to disability in response to stakeholder requirements. These requirements included the incorporation of the recommendations of the Washington Group on framing questions relating to the compilation of statistics on disability while also retaining as much comparability as possible with previous census questions on disability. The range of detailed statistics relating to disability produced from the Irish census is unparalleled within the EU.

The CSO has started the preparatory work for the next census which will take place in 2027. The public consultation on the questions to be included in census 2027 was launched late last year and the CSO is currently preparing to appoint a census advisory group of subject matter experts to advise on potential changes to the set of census questions. The National Disability Authority, NDA, has been part of the census advisory group since 2004. As part of the consultation, multiple submissions were made relating to the questions on disability and these will be considered by the census advisory group with a view to ensuring the census 2027 questionnaire is as representative as possible of the data requirements of census users.

The CSO is also putting the citizen at the centre of the design planning for census 2027. Meetings have been held with organisations representing persons with a disability and these will continue during the process of developing the next census, which will have an online response option as well as a paper option. These groups have included representatives of persons with visual impairment, the deaf community and the deaf-blind community. The CSO plans to engage the expertise of these and other groups in enhancing the accessibility of census 2027 for all citizens.

A proof of concept for the online platform took place in September 2022 and the platform was assessed from an accessibility perspective by Inclusion & Accessibility Labs. Relevant courses are also being provided to CSO staff. The census 2027 website will be designed in line with web content accessibility guidelines, WCAG 2.2 AA, and, if there are future guidelines, these will be adhered to. Supports will also be available to the public on the website, through help desks and field staff.

I will now turn now to some of the other CSO activities in relation to the provision of data on disabilities. Social surveys in CSO include disability questions on every survey. The integrated European social survey, IESS, regulation provides the legislative basis for social surveys - a labour force survey, the survey of income and living conditions, the European health survey and an adult education survey - and includes an agreed set of disability questions that are asked in each of these surveys. The regulation requires that these questions are included every two years.

The European health information survey, a regulatory survey carried out in 2019, has published several tables around disability. The sexual violence survey, which will be published on 30 March, will also include a chapter on disability. The data collected in these social surveys are available on request in an anonymised aggregate format for researchers or other bodies and the CSO deals with many ad hocqueries on disability.

The CSO has published releases in respect of 15 of the 17 interconnected UN sustainable development goals, SDGs, including on good health and well-being, gender equality and reduced inequalities. The CSO, Ordnance Survey Ireland and the Environment Systems Research Institute have created a new website called Ireland's SDGs data hub, which is Ireland’s central portal for all SDGs and contains indicators data on the 17 UN SDGs for Ireland. The site facilitates the reporting on how Ireland is progressing towards meeting the 17 UN SDGs.

In addition, the CSO sits on several interdepartmental groups related to equality data matters, including data related to disability. We work closely with the expert advisory group on equality budgeting, have completed and published an equality data audit of the Irish public sector in 2020 and are currently supporting the development of a national equality data strategy with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth.

The CSO publishes pathfinder projects that are policy-relevant research projects that bring together data from CSO and administrative sources. These include research projects related to many topics, including disability. In 2021, for example, the report, Income, Employment and Welfare Analysis of People with a Disability 2019, was released. This report looked at individuals who reported a disability on census night 2016 and linked them to pseudonymised administrative data sources, including employment data from the Revenue Commissioners, welfare data from the Department of Social Protection, education data from the Department of Education and the Higher Education Authority, social housing data from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and health support data from the HSE, to provide new insights into the employment, income, education, health and housing outcomes for people with a disability.

The joint committee’s pre-budget submission recommended further disaggregation of the survey on income and living conditions, SILC. The structure and methodology for the SILC is determined at European level to ensure international comparability and the sample size does not lend itself to the breakdown proposed. More importantly, it is not the appropriate instrument for the collection and compilation of data on disability at subnational level. The Irish census, as mentioned, provides detailed statistics relating to disability every five years. A dedicated thematic publication on disability entitled, Census 22 Profile 4 release - Disability, Health and Carers, is scheduled for publication on 28 September.

To conclude, the CSO is no longer an organisation that simply provides data and statistics. We provide evidence and insight to policymakers and citizens. The CSO vision is independent insight for all. We see our role as one that ensures the people of Ireland live in an informed society and our outputs and services are viewed as a public good. We will continue to listen to the needs of policymakers and other stakeholders in the area of disability statistics and continue to compile statistics from a mix of primary and secondary sources to meet these needs. We are happy to take any questions the committee may have.