Mairéad Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)
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468. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if her attention has been drawn to the primary school parent survey given the survey is currently open and is subject to misuse (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [65040/25]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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My department has robust and multi-layered arrangements in place to ensure the integrity and security of the primary school survey process.

The arrangements for validating survey returns operate after survey returns are received as this facilitates ease of use for survey users.

This validation process can deal with scenarios such as multiple returns and it operates in the background after survey returns are received and is being done on a real-time basis.

The Eircode parents and guardians provide to the primary schools their children attend is a key aspect for those undertaking the survey. Submitted Eircodes are checked against my department’s Primary Online Database (POD) in respect of primary school children and Child Benefit data in respect of younger children to ensure that the responses are from households with primary school children or younger children. My department’s validation process also involves checks for duplicate responses. Measures are taken to ensure only one submission is counted. In cases where a pattern of multiple submission is detected, the Eircodes are flagged and appropriate actions can be taken to deal with same. If multiple occurrences of suspect activity occur, additional security measures can be deployed to eliminate the ability of automated responses.

The survey process has been peer reviewed by the Central Statistics Office who are the State’s experts in undertaking survey processes.