Sir, – I read with interest the Irish census results which were published at the end of June. As an Irishman living abroad I like to try to keep abreast of what is going on in my home country. I was quite surprised to hear, on July 10th, from some family members living in Ireland (Galway West constituency), that nobody had collected their census form, nor that of their neighbours!
I would be curious to take a census, as it were, of how many Irish households are also in this situation? Is it simply a small number of forgotten houses, something which is at best extremely careless and disappointing, or is it widespread, something which could only be considered shambolic? Either way, such households have been erased from the record.
This raises a few other questions: have the enumerators for areas where the census remains uncollected been paid for the services they did not provide? What are the criteria for deciding that all forms are returned and that it is okay to start counting? Surely it is in the public interest that the census be performed correctly. If citizens do not fill out their census forms they are liable for a €25,000 fine – what happens, and to who, if nobody bothers to collect them?
The answer, in a banana republic, is that nothing happens. What is the case in Ireland? If the Central Statistics Office or any Teachtaí Dálaí are interested in satisfying my curiosity in these matters, I would be most grateful. – Yours, etc,