Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 15 October 2024
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government
Analysis of Private Rental Sector Discrepancies: Discussion (Resumed)
3:00 pm
Mr. Cormac Halpin:
From a census perspective, possibly not, because the way Ireland has traditionally conducted the census is quite different from most European countries and globally. The traditional census is kind of a dying art whereby we go to households and deliver and collect a form. Most continental European countries, for example, would have population registers and housing registers that get linked together to provide information. From our perspective, a huge amount of effort is put into maximising the coverage in some of the areas I spoke about previously in terms of the legal obligation and the publicity. Typically, the response rates we have in Ireland compare very well with other English-speaking countries, which are typically the ones that do the traditional-type census. We have always had great buy-in from the Irish public. It would probably be folly for me to say that absolutely 100% of people respond to the census, but our rates compare very well internationally.
As regards picking up complex living arrangements, the census is a blunt instrument. It has to go into every single household in the country, by definition, with lots of different levels of comprehension literacy and language ability. The questions have to be quite straightforward to pick up the multiplicity of different types of living arrangement. We try as much as we can to reflect the way society is evolving, but it is not always possible to get the degree of nuance that some stakeholders would like.
No comments