Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)
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The census is a major undertaking for the CSO and contractors have been employed to assist with specialised parts of the work. For 2011 the contract for the design and print of the census forms, and the provision and on-site support of the hardware and software required for the scanning, capture and coding of the census forms was awarded to a UK company CACI (UK) Ltd. This company was first awarded the contract for the processing of the 2002 and 2006 censuses and more recently won the contract for Census 2011. Of the proposals assessed by CSO for 2011, CACI (UK) Ltd provided best value for money for the Irish taxpayer. EU rules do not allow bidders to be excluded because they are foreign companies. The printing of the census forms was sub-contracted by CACI (UK) Ltd. to a Dublin-based printer.

The CSO is aware of abuse allegations against the American parent company of CACI (UK) Ltd, namely CACI International. CACI (UK) Ltd. states that the allegation against CACI International was not substantiated by any evidence or proof at the time it was made, and subsequent investigations by both CACI International and the US Government could not confirm it. CACI International have stated publicly that they take this allegation extremely seriously, that they do not condone, tolerate or endorse any illegal behaviour by its employees in any circumstances or at any time and they have held in the past, and always will hold, themselves to the highest ethical standards.

As a public body the Central Statistics Office is clearly fundamentally committed to ethical and proper conduct in all matters and would never consider having any dealings with a company convicted of human rights abuse. EU procurement rules allow bidders to be excluded if they have been convicted of certain criminal or other offences but none of these exclusions apply to CACI (UK) Ltd. or indeed to its US parent.

Regarding the protection of census data, confidentiality is the cornerstone of all work conducted by the CSO. All information collected in the census is treated as strictly confidential by the CSO and will be used only for statistical purposes. This confidentiality is guaranteed by law. CACI (UK) Ltd's American parent company is not involved in any way in the preparation or delivery of systems for the Irish Census. All Census 2011 forms will be processed in the CSO census office located in Swords where all information is stored on a dedicated closed CSO network which is wholly owned by the CSO. At no time will any of the detailed census information be copied or otherwise removed from this network. All staff who are employed to work on the processing of the 2011 census data are signed-up as Officers of Statistics under the Statistics Act 1993 which legally prohibits them from divulging confidential statistical data of any sort. The penalty for breach of this provision of the Act is set at €25,000.

The CSO is the only organisation that will have access to identifiable census information relating to individuals or households. The CSO is justifiably proud of its unblemished record in protecting the confidentiality of data. It is one of their top priorities to maintain this record.

Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)
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A total of 5,536 people have been recruited to assist with the field work on the 2011 census. All of the recruitment for the census field operation has been carried out by the CSO under licence by the Commission for Public Service Appointments and complies with their strict recruitment principles regarding fairness, equality, openness and transparency. The field staff can be divided into two separate types of contract, the field managers and supervisors, and the enumerators. The 490 census field managers are all employed full time on the census.

Some 4,866 census enumerators are engaged in a part-time capacity; on taking up employment as enumerators 3,074 people indicated that they were not in employment and 1,777 indicated some form of other employment. However it is important to note that all applicants for enumerator positions were assessed at interview on their availability for census work (given the need to make frequent calls to households at different times of the day); those in full-time work were assessed as having low availability and so would be unlikely to be offered enumerator positions ahead of other suitably qualified candidates. It is more likely that those in existing employment are working part-time elsewhere. Again it was not open to the CSO to exclude people on this basis. 734 enumerators indicated at interview that they were on the Live Register representing 15% of all enumerators.

Some 4,866 census enumerators are engaged in a part-time capacity; on taking up employment as enumerators 3,074 people indicated that they were not in employment and 1,777 indicated some form of other employment. However it is important to note that all applicants for enumerator positions were assessed at interview on their availability for census work (given the need to make frequent calls to households at different times of the day); those in full-time work were assessed as having low availability and so would be unlikely to be offered enumerator positions ahead of other suitably qualified candidates. It is more likely that those in existing employment are working part-time elsewhere. Again it was not open to the CSO to exclude people on this basis. 734 enumerators indicated at interview that they were on the Live Register representing 15% of all enumerators.