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Introduction
The Population Census in Ireland is the largest statistical operation undertaken by the
Central Statistics Office (CSO). It is also the most exacting, since the field work must
be completed over a relatively short period and a complete count of everybody in the
country on census night must be obtained. The 2002 Population Census was
conducted with reference to the night of Sunday 28 April. The population covered
every person who passed the night of Sunday 28 April in the household, communal
establishment or vessel or who arrived on the morning of Monday 29 April not having
been enumerated elsewhere.
In England there has been an enumeration of the population every ten years since
1801. In Ireland this undertaking was established somewhat later and was more
erratic, starting with an unsuccessful exercise in 1812/13 and two other headcounts in
1821 and 1831 before the ‘Great Census’ of 1841 promoted by Captain Thomas
Larcom. Since that time, the need for information on population and agricultural
production became increasingly apparent, giving rise to a series of enumerations and
preparation of a legislative basis.
Since 1841, censuses were held every ten years up to and including 1911. The first
census following the formation of the State was undertaken in 1926 and was followed
by censuses in 1936 and 1946. Starting from 1951, Irish censuses have been held
every five years, generally in years ending in ‘1’ and ‘6’. Mid-decade censuses (i.e.
those in years ending in ‘6’) cover questions relating only to individuals, while
censuses held in years ending in ‘1’ (including the 2002 Census) cover housing
characteristics in addition to personal questions. The five-year periodicity was broken
in 1976 with the cancellation of the census planned for that year because of budgetary
cutbacks. A census containing six questions was held in 1979. This was followed by a
full census in 1981. The five-year periodicity was again broken when the 2001 Census
(originally foreseen for April 2001) was postponed until April 2002 because of the
foot and mouth disease outbreak at that time.
The 2002 Census has been conducted as usual by the CSO which is an independent
Office established in 1949. It operates under the aegis of the Department of the
Taoiseach (Head of Irish Government) to guarantee its statistical independence and
the confidentiality of the collected data.
Legislation
The legal basis for taking the 2002 Census is the Statistics (Census of Population)
Order 2001 (S.I. No 481 of 2001) made under the Statistics Act, 1993. Administrative
fines in case a person fails or refuses to provide the information requested on the
census form or provides false information are defined in the Statistics Order. Under
Section 26 of the Statistics Act, 1993 each householder (or any present adult member
of the household) and each person in charge of a communal establishment is obliged
by law to complete the census form.
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The importance of censuses appears clearly in the Constitution: more precisely,
Article 16.2 of the Constitution establishes total memberships of the House of
Representatives (Dail Eireann) – i.e. 1 TD per 20.00 to 30.00 – depend on the
population as measured by the census.
The Statistics Act which established the CSO as a statutory body of the Civil Service
reinforced its independence and data confidentiality. The public therefore is assured
that the information provided will be treated as strictly confidential by the CSO. It is
used for statistical purposes, and the results are prepared and disseminated in a fair
and impartial manner. The names of individuals are not entered into any computer
database and no other Government department or agency has access to identifiable
information relating to individuals or households. Furthermore, the 1993 Statistics Act
allows census returns to be made available as public records 100 years after the
relevant census to ensure confidentiality.
Preparatory phases
A Pilot Test was carried out in September 1999 covering the 0.6% of the population
with reference period Sunday 19 September. Based on the findings of this test and
following a Government decision a number of new questions were added, including:
๐ PC ownership and access to the Internet
๐ nationality
๐ membership of the Irish Traveller Community
๐ disability (2 questions)
๐ time of leaving home for work, school or college and travel time taken
๐ third level qualifications held
๐ providing regular unpaid help for a friend or a family member
๐ labour market participation according to International Labour Office
recommendations
As compared to previous censuses the census form was radically altered. The
questionnaire used in the 2002 Census was a 24-page booklet catering for up to six
persons present in the household on census night (3 pages per person). Where more
than six people were present a continuation form catering for a further six persons was
used. The household form sought limited information (8 questions) about persons who
were temporarily away from the household on census night whether elsewhere in
Ireland or abroad. The purpose of these questions was to provide details of the usually
resident population and to enable an analysis of the permanent composition of
households to be undertaken.
Prior to census day, the following tasks were completed:
- division of the whole country into approximately 4 000 non-overlapping
Enumeration Areas (EAs) containing approximately 350 houses each;
- identification of the boundaries of all administrative and geographic areas (i.e.
counties, towns, suburbs, Electoral Divisions and town lands);
- provision of a detailed map for each EA with all boundaries marked to ensure the
coverage of all households and residential establishments located within the EAs;
- interviews of approximately 15 000 applicants in some 200 different locations for
the temporary field force positions.
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Publicity and information
In order to raise the awareness of the population, an intensive public awareness
campaign was conducted on TV, radio, in newspapers and outdoors during the month
leading up to the census day. Its purpose was to encourage and remind people to fill
out their census form. This campaign, which was open to public tender, was handled
for CSO by Dimension Marketing Limited.
The advertising campaign was complemented by:
๐ information leaflets on the census, given to each household with their census form
๐ widespread display of posters
๐ education packs for primary and secondary schools
The main target of the publicity campaign was the general public. Other approaches
were specifically aimed at the traveller community, ethnic minorities (via the website)
and visitors to the country.
The CSO created a specific census website giving guidelines on filling out the forms,
allowing the downloading of samples of the census form in seven different languages,
answering frequently asked questions and providing a wide range of background
information on the project. The website contained extensive material for use in
schools. For example, it allowed the user to download lesson plans and activity
packages (in PDF format) covering all levels in primary and secondary schools.
The most interesting feature on the census website is the ‘Step by Step Guide to the
Form’. This guide covered all questions on the census form relating to individuals and
explained why the question was being asked and what the CSO is able to deduce from
the answers. Each question is complemented with statistics produced from the
previous census and guidelines on how to answer the more complex questions.
Field operations
A temporary field force consisting of five Census Liaison Officers, 35 Regional
Supervisors, 350 Field Supervisors and some 4 000 part-time Enumerators carried
out the enumeration. A small clerical staff was employed over four months in the
unpacking, receipting and batching of the census forms. A total of 190 CSO
permanent staff were employed during the census to fulfil a range of duties
including recruitment, mapping, distribution, advertising and processing.
All necessary materials (census forms) were packed into 8 000 enumerator storage
cases and delivered directly from the CSO office in Swords by a specialised transport
company to the 21 Regional Offices and 350 Field Supervisors. Then the blank census
questionnaires were distributed by the enumerators to every household and communal
establishment in the country during the four weeks immediately before the census
night. The collection of completed questionnaires by the same trained enumerators
started on Monday 29 April and ended four weeks later. It was not possible to return
the form electronically because of security and administration concerns.
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The form should have taken less than 30 minutes to fill out, depending on the number
of people in the household while the enumerators had to provide any assistance,
required by the public.
A listing form was provided for communal establishments. Every person present in
the communal establishment on the census night was listed on this form and received
an individual form for completion.
An Irish language version of the household form, continuation form, listing form and
individual form was available for completion by any person who required one. In
addition, the main text of the household form was translated into Albanian, French,
Polish, Romanian and Russian to assist people who were not familiar with either
English or Irish.
Furthermore, special arrangements were made to assist the visually impaired to fill
out their census forms. A large print version of the individual form, as well as
versions in Braille and on audiotape, were provided in consultation with the National
Council for the Blind in Ireland. Assisted by the National Adult Literacy Association
the CSO made arrangements for people with literacy difficulties. The enumerators
were trained to offer help to anyone having difficulty completing the census form.
Each enumerator was required to prepare a summary for his/her EA. These summaries
were returned to the CSO in advance of the main body of the census field records had
to be used to establish preliminary results.
No post-census quality survey was implemented.
Data processing
The census form was redesigned to be scanned. When the completed census forms
were returned to CSO they were guillotined and scanned and the information on them
read using up to date recognition technology. The census forms were converted into
computer images and, using OCR, were converted into readable data for checking and
coding by computer. This was carried out with the assistance of 80 CSO staff. Data
capture was performed using the software Bespoke System built on AFPS-PRO (Top
Image Systems Israel). ORACLE was used to store both data and form images during
processing. SAS and TPL were used in the data processing phase.
In the design of the questionnaire extensive use was made of tick-boxes, while
responses, which required information to be written in (e.g.: occupation, industry),
used constrained boxes where the relevant texts were provided.
A trimmed down version of NACE Rev 1 (131 headings) was used to classify
responses to questions on the industry of a person’s employer enabling results to be
classified by these 131 headings or 2-digit NACE. Occupational responses were
classified using the UK Standard Occupational Classification 1990 allowing
correlation with ISCO-88.
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A mix of automatic and computer assisted coding was used for all questions having
written in text responses including occupation (SOC 1990) and industry (NACE
based). In all cases texts were directly matched against a text look-up dictionary if no
match was found. The record was displayed to the operator for computer-assisted
coding. In the case of occupation coding an expert coding package (Precision Data
Coder) was used where the direct match look up fails to code.
Data dissemination
The preliminary results of the 2002 Census comprised of population by sex at the
small area level were published within three months of census day. The CSO gave top
priority to the early publication of the detailed results. Inevitably there was a delay in
publishing the census results because the details of over 1.4°million households and
3.8°million people had to be checked for accuracy and consistency, corrected where
necessary, and a number of personal characteristics (e.g.: occupation and business)
had to be coded in detail. This was a sizeable job, which was completed by over 150
staff temporarily assigned to CSO for a period of about two years.
Output products will consist of tables to be made available in traditional publications
as well as on the website using specialised software (Beyond 20/20). This is a new
web-based tool providing access to large data tables. All published tables from the
1996 Census are already available in this format.
A number of dedicated volumes will be produced. The main demographic results will
contain tables and commentary as well as principal socio-economic results. Within
two years of the census the full range of results will be released in the traditional
manner in a series of subject-matter volumes (e.g.: areas, age and marital status,
household and family, migration and birthplace, etc). In addition increased emphasis
will be placed on disseminating the data electronically, i.e. on CD-ROM and via the
Internet. A 5% sample of anonymous data will be made available to recognised
institutes for consultation.
All publications and output products will be made available within 14-24 months after
census day. More precisely, it is foreseen that dissemination of the definitive analyses
of the population by such factors as age, marital status, occupation, etc. will begin in
mid-2003.
Costs
The total cost of the 2002 Census in Ireland was €°44°million. This amount includes €
8 millions for the cost of the one-year postponement. The greatest portion of these
costs was for expenses related to the process of enumeration (including training of
enumerators), corresponding to 46.9% of the total cost. Data processing, checking and
coding was 25.4% of the total cost. Included in this amount were the general
preparation, cartography and mapping, data processing and analysis and
dissemination cost. CSO used 22.3% for equipment and the remaining 5.4% was used
for the pilot micro-census (1.7%) and publicity and information campaign (3.7%).
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Conclusion and future plans
The field operation was excellent, however it is becoming more difficult to realise
100% enumeration in certain urban areas. Nevertheless, it is foreseen that the next
census will be traditional with a classic questionnaire to be completed by individuals.
Based on the Irish statistical system, the census is still the fundamental tool used for
the revision of population data in the inter-census years, population projections and
other activities, such as the Labour Force Survey.