Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left)
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529. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the reason a recent form issued by her Department to be completed by primary school students seeking information on their ethnic background contains the terms white Irish and black background when these terms do not identify ethnicity; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [4748/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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There are many different definitions and understandings of what comprises ethnic and cultural background, and it is understood that the range of possible categories is wider than what is outlined in our question. The question in relation to ethnic and cultural background are based on the categories from the

two most recent Census of Population questions, and similar to those asked in many other countries.

The Department welcomes and will take under consideration all feedback in relation to the structure of the Ethnic and cultural background question. We are committed to continually reviewing the variables in POD, and in response to feedback given we are proposing to review some of the labelling of the categories in this question. We will notify schools on this in due course.

In relation to the overall question the Statistics Section of the Department met with the CSO's Census of Population Division to discuss concerns around this question. They accept that the variant of the ethnicity question on the 2016 census may fall short of what could be expected in today's multi-racial Ireland. Given the no-change' census approach being adopted for Census of Population 2016 it is not possible to change the CSO question at this stage.

However the CSO has indicated that it is considering holding a seminar this year to examine how the data in this area can be improved from the point of view of maximising the number of write-in responses to increase the variety of ethnic descriptions captured, the classification system used, and also looking at the nationality vs. citizenship issue and examining generally how the outputs from the census can be improved in this important area. The Department of Education and Skills will be participating in this seminar.

Note that the question on POD is intended to capture ethnic and cultural background only and there is a separate question on POD for nationality. If a category such as other black background or other inc. mixed background is chosen the pupil can record their Irish nationality in the nationality question.