Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

My main concern is that we should learn from this debacle and review the situation where retired people rather than the long-term unemployed are engaged as enumerators. The census offers an opportunity to get people off the dole for one, two or even three months. It is a pity we are down to the wire in regard to the remuneration of those people who took part in gathering the 1.6 million census forms. They should have been paid much sooner. There is also an issue in that the tender for the gathering and compilation of census data was given to a United States company based in Britain which has a dubious history. However, my colleague will deal with that point.

I hope lessons are learned too in terms of the wording of census questions, some of which we still have not got right. For example, many people were upset by the question which asked female respondents about the number of children born alive to them. This means women who have had stillbirths are not included in the data. Society has moved on from the situation in the past and such births are now registered and funerals are conducted for these infants. We must be careful about how this question is worded in the future.

The plan to publish the details of the 1926 census later this year is welcome and they will be a great tool for historians and for anybody interested in their family history. However, a difficulty may arise from the decision to release this information before 100 years have lapsed, as is the usual practice, in that it may discourage people from providing accurate information in future censuses. In other words, the release of historical census data ahead of schedule has consequences today. In that context, I urge that the 1936 census not be released before 2036. There is a concern that personal information may be released at a future date which might cast some type of aspersion on people still living.

I welcome the announcement that the full data from the 2011 census will be published by the end of March next year. It is vital that we get the statistics early, especially in this changing climate, so that policy can be properly planned. I urge the Government to review the data as quickly as possible so that we can get our social policy right and plan our economy into the future. The preliminary data will be available at the end of June and must be reviewed over the summer as part of the planning for budget 2012. These data will help us to understand the scale of poverty in society and to see what changes have happened since the last census.

Finally, in the event that we have not changed to having an electoral register based on PPS numbers when future censuses are taken, I urge that the opportunity presented by people calling to each house in the country be used to induce people to fill out another form to ensure everyone is on the electoral register.

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