Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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181. To ask the Taoiseach when the next census of population will be carried out; and the preparations undertaken to date. [9634/25]

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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On 1 March 2022, the Government formally decided to conduct a Census of Population in 2027 to be carried out by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

Census 2027 will be a major undertaking for the CSO as, for the first time in Irish history, the public will have the option to complete their census form online. While the majority of the public are likely to avail of the new online option, it is expected that several hundred thousand households will opt to handwrite their census responses onto a paper form. Both online and paper census forms will be available in Irish and English. This is a complex digital transformation programme, which involves a fundamental redesign of how the census is conducted.

Planning and preparation for Census 2027 started in 2021. In September 2022, the CSO undertook a small Proof of Concept exercise which explored the feasibility of using an online platform as a method of collecting census type responses.

The CSO held a public consultation between 30 November 2022 and 20 January 2023 which invited submissions on the content of the form for the 2027 Census of Population. Over 400 submissions were received. The CSO convened a Census Advisory Group (CAG) who met in June 2023 to discuss the submissions. The group is made up of representatives of Government departments, public bodies, the social partners, research institutes and CSO personnel. Their remit is to assist the CSO in the framing of the Census 2027 questionnaire.

The CSO ran a census pilot survey between 2 September and 25 October 2024. The census pilot survey was voluntary and took place in 20,000 homes across six counties. The main objectives of the census pilot survey were to test out the new online census form, test out new processes and technology that were developed to deliver an online census and to test out new and updated census questions.

Further development of the data collection and processing systems are underway, taking in to account the findings of the census pilot survey and the need to scale up for a full census. The results from the census pilot survey are being analysed currently and the findings will be presented to the CAG before the content of the census form is finalised.

Extensive testing of census processes and technologies will take place in 2026. It is expected that the majority of the field staff needed to run the census will be recruited in early 2027 in advance of the census data collection in April and May 2027.