Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That is why the Government is absolutely committed to delivering on housing, giving that hope and ensuring the progressive delivery of social and affordable homes for many people.

As regards the Deputy's point on dereliction, I sent him a letter in recent weeks with the factual position on that. I will ask my officials to send him an updated note on that again, but I did follow up on it. I am not sure whether the Deputy has seen it, but I wrote to him in recent weeks with the factual position on dereliction and vacancy. I will ask my officials to send that to the Deputy again.

There is no space for a supplementary question. The census forms are printed and ready to go. As I stated, there is a process through the census advisory group which, obviously, concluded in 2019. There will be scope in the following census for any additional questions people might have.

On the point raised by Deputy O'Connor, I know the Ceann Comhairle takes a keen interest in Kildare South, notwithstanding his re-election to this Dáil. As regards the statutory and constitutional obligations the Deputy mentioned, it is expected that the delay of one year will result in a similar delay to the report of the next boundary commission. The deferral of the census by a year has the effect of delaying the establishment of the constituency commission by one year, until July 2022. The most recent constituency commission was established on 14 July 2016 following the publication of preliminary results of the census of population. The commission was required to present its report not later than three months after the publication by the CSO of the final result of the 2016 census. Final results for census 2016 were published on 6 April 2017.

Deputy Devlin asked about preparation. The CSO is employing 5,500 temporary field staff to carry out the next census, which will take place on 3 April 2022. This includes six census liaison officers, 46 regional supervisors, 466 field supervisors and 5,100 census enumerators. The census liaison officers, regional supervisors and field supervisors have taken up their posts. Offers of employment will issue to census enumerators at the end of next week. Since the pandemic began, the CSO has implemented full online interviewing for the recruitment process and online training of new staff.

As regards his point on the publication of the 1926 census, I understand work is under way to digitise that. That work is being carried out in conjunction with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, which has responsibility for the National Archives. I do not expect it to be published in the interim period but work is under way to meet the current deadline.

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