Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)

CACI International has stated publicly that it does not condone, tolerate or endorse any illegal behaviour by its employees in any circumstances or at any time and the company has held in the past, and always will hold, itself to the highest ethical standards. It should be noted that CACI International, the American parent company of CACI (UK) Limited, has no involvement in the Irish census contract. It is not involved in any way in the preparation or delivery of systems for the Irish census. As a public body the CSO is fundamentally committed to ethical and proper conduct in all matters and would never consider having any dealings with a company convicted of a human rights abuse.

It is also important to note that confidentiality is the cornerstone of all work conducted by the CSO. All census 2011 forms will be processed in CSO census office in Swords where information is stored on a dedicated closed CSO network wholly owned by the CSO. All information collected in the census is treated as strictly confidential by the CSO and will be used for statistical purposes. This confidentiality is guaranteed by law.

The CSO is justifiably proud of its unblemished record in protecting the confidentiality of data. It is one of its top priorities to maintain this record. Every household in the State is legally obliged to participate in the census and the wealth of information that the census provides is available for use by everyone, free of charge. Census data is used by a wide of range of organisations and individuals from central and local government, to local community groups and to our enterprise development agencies working to attract foreign direct investment, entrepreneurs and jobs into Ireland. Everybody in this House should be encouraging every household in Ireland to participate fully in the census and to visit the census website to get a feel for enormous benefits the census information will bring to Ireland over the coming years.

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