Tom Kitt (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)

Under the CSO's legal mandate, as Deputy Ó Caoláin will appreciate, the agency does not have jurisdiction to collect statistics from households or businesses in Northern Ireland and would not, therefore, be in a position to compile statistics on Northern Ireland. However, the Deputy is not suggesting that anyway. I agree that the maximum level of co-operation in this area is vital to the interests of the island of Ireland and I will convey his views to the CSO.

As I stated earlier, the agency has undertaken a number of initiatives in co-operation with the relevant Departments in Northern Ireland but we have different ways of collecting information. With regard to the comparability of statistics when compiling the North-South statistical profile, it is important to note that different concepts are used on either side of the Border to collect information and in the classification system used when publishing tables. For these reasons, some statistics are not directly comparable between Northern Ireland and the Republic. The CSO will consider, in consultation with the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, NISRA, the publication of a new edition of the North-South statistical profile when the full 2006 census of population results are available.

The Deputy is correct that, since the foundation of the State, tables showing long-term time series for the Twenty-six Counties have regularly been included in statistical publications. The 1926 census, for example, included figures dating back to 1821 in respect of the Twenty-six Counties, which allowed population figures to be presented on a comparative geographical basis. The main areas for which statistics were compiled prior to the foundation of the State were population, agriculture, births, deaths and marriages.

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