can you send the census 2011 forms back directly to the cso ?

[Complainer]

I was also wondering, why in this day and age, you cannot complete the form online like the UK are advertising.

Would there not be a better response and also a better cost to serve if you register online?

Many people don't have internet access or a computer. CSO offered the online option on a recent survey to businesses, and got a 10% online response rate. Most people prefer pen and paper, despite what Bertie told us.

This thread raises the question of whether the Census itself is justified.

I had a lecturer some years ago who made a compelling argument for the scrapping of the process. Many of the questions are meaningless - How many bathrooms do you have. Why should this be of interest to the State?

He argued that a fully representative survey, focussed on the issues for which information was really needed, would be much more accurate and could be done at a fraction of the cost of the Census.

Every question on the Census has been pored and fought over for the past five years. For every question, the demand for the resulting data has been clearly established, and indeed there are about 10 more possible questions that have been ruled out. Questions aren't made up on the spur of the moment by some bloke in Cork. There is a very well established scientific process to put together the Census. But it seems that yet again, the AAM armchair experts conclude that because they personally don't use the data, therefore no-one else does either.

 

[Berni]

I never got a census form... got a slip of paper in the door today to day to say "i called today bla bla and i will call back tomorrow between 3 and 7"... should i not have already got a form?

They only started delivering them last weekend. It is still almost 4 weeks away, so I wouldn't worry yet

 

[Leper]

I worked as an enumerator before, so here goes:

- You can ask for a confidential return where the enumerator will give you an envelope which you post back to CSO & then the supervisor holds onto it until the crates are returned......HOWEVER, other than date of birth, there is nothing really all that confidential on the form. The enumerators are collecting about 450 forms - we have no interest in reading them. All we do is scan the form at the doorstep (in front of you) which is just to check the form was filled in correctly (no pencil or red pen, has been signed, all people accounted for etc)

- The Census form does not ask anything about bathrooms - other than to expressly exclude them from the total number of rooms in a house.

- We have gotten so much info on our ancestors via the 1901 & 1911 Census, I can't imagine why anyone would not want to fill it in.

- Online systems and Postal return systems would have a much lower return rate

- Re Foreign Nationals....they were generally quiet happy to participate. I'm sure there were some who were not included, probably becasue they are here illegally or doing something dodgy. You'll find the same with Irish people.....

- It is not possible to ensure each enumerator does not know anyone in their area. I knew lots of people in my area & nobody had an issue with that. It is normal to use local people who will know the lay of the land & help keep costs down. Imagine how expensive it would be to have everyone travel out of their own area to reduce the likihood of knowing people.

- I agree there are a fair few questions & you'd wonder behind the logic of some of them, but they do extensisve research on what questions to include. If you are going to go to the expense of doing a Census, you may as well gather as much info as is feasible.

Great post. Completing the Census form is no big deal. The information supplied will help those in generations to come. I just wonder if the generations to come will have access to the likes of this forum and what they will think of their forebears with stupid moans, moans and more moans.

 

[Staples]

But it seems that yet again, the AAM armchair experts conclude that because they personally don't use the data, therefore no-one else does either.

Presumably the armchair experts comprise the UK authorities who are giving serious consideration to scrapping the process and using other databases and methods to produce the required information.

I have no real issue with the nature of the information collected (bathrooms aside). My view is that there may be more efficient ways of getting it.

I just wonder if the generations to come will have access to the likes of this forum and what they will think of their forebears with stupid moans, moans and more moans.

Hopefully they'll be open enough to allow them distinguish between a moan and the expression of an observation.

 

[Complainer]

Presumably the armchair experts comprise the UK authorities who are giving serious consideration to scrapping the process and using other databases and methods to produce the required information.

Do you think that it is just vaguely possible that the Irish experts in the CSO know exactly what the UK are up to, and have taken this into account in their decision about how to proceed in the Irish situation?

Do you really think that the experts in the CSO are going to learn much from a thread on AAM?

 

[Staples]

Do you think that it is just vaguely possible that the Irish experts in the CSO know exactly what the UK are up to, and have taken this into account in their decision about how to proceed in the Irish situation?

Do you really think that the experts in the CSO are going to learn much from a thread on AAM?

I don't really care to be frank.

I was expressing an opinion - not seeking to change the way the CSO does its business. If I felt so compelled I'd contact them directly.

 

[dereko1969]

If, on the other hand, the fucntion of the census is to inform policy and decision-making, I still maintain there are cheaper and more efficient ways of garnering the required information.

Care to give an example here? The census is hugely important and is the one chance we have to get really detailed, generally accurate information about the whole country.

This particular census will be hugely valuable in terms of getting a proper handle on ghost estates, emmigration figures etc as local authorities, government departments are still bound to operate on the information from the last census which was at the height of the boom and which is obviously way out of kilter with where we are now.

 

[Complainer]

I don't really care to be frank.

I was expressing an opinion - not seeking to change the way the CSO does its business. If I felt so compelled I'd contact them directly.

In fairness, you did more than express an opinion. You stated that " Many of the questions are meaningless" and the one example that you gave was proven to be incorrect. So perhaps you'd like to tell us which of the other questions are meaningless.

 

[Staples]

In fairness, you did more than express an opinion. You stated that " Many of the questions are meaningless" and the one example that you gave was proven to be incorrect.

There's certainly nothing you've offered that's challenged my belief that the example I offered was incorrect. I can't imagine why people's bathrooms are of any interest to anyone any more tan the number of rubber ducks they have within them.

However, if somebody, somewhere really wants to know how many bathrooms exist in Ireland, I belive that there are more efficient ways of elicitting this information than consulting the entire population on a Sunday evening.

Apologies for not making clear that my contributions here were the expression of opinion. Now that I'm aware of your sensibilities in this regard, I promise to be more careful next time.

 

[Complainer]

Enough with the bathroom obsession. You've already been told that "The Census form does not ask anything about bathrooms - other than to expressly exclude them from the total number of rooms in a house. "

It doesn't ask anything about bathrooms, and I guess that you've now realised that you have nothing substantial to offer on the 'many of the questions are meaningless' point.

To hell with my sensibilities - if you have serious critique, let's get it on the table. If you have more of the usual AAM bar-stool expertise, then....

 

[Staples]

I could equally ask why the number of rooms in a house is of such consequence that a census is justified, or, even if it is, why there is a need to exclude bathrooms from the equation.

And by the way, if "serious critique" was a prerequisite for offerings on the Letting Off Steam for, it would be a pretty quiet place. However, it is what it is so if it continues to offend you.....

 

[dereko1969]

Number of rooms can have a correlation to how many people might live in the house allied to age of "parents" might give an indication of future inhabitants of house and services that might be required, extrapolating from same given the average fertility rate etc etc

You still haven't given an example of how the detailed information can be obtained cheaper/easier - just because you keep repeating it doesn't make it true, even if you write FACT afterwards!!

 

[Complainer]

I could equally ask why the number of rooms in a house is of such consequence that a census is justified, or, even if it is, why there is a need to exclude bathrooms from the equation.

Indeed, you might ask those questions. You are welcome to ask questions. You might just find that those who know more than you or I about how this particular bit of census data actually gets used can answer those questions.

I had a brief exposure to the CSO process of designing one part of the Census. It was clear to me that every single answer to each of the questions in that part of the census got careful consideration from the CSO experts, working in partnership with the people who will use the data.

However, you didn't start out 'asking questions'. You started out with a claim that 'many of the questions are meaningless'. It is clear that this claim has no basis.

 

[thesimpsons]

I'd feel alot better about the costs involved in organising a countrywide census if I thought that the info contained in the final reports was actually being used for a genuine purpose. Every census we do, we are told that the info is vital for establishing the numbers of schools, hospitals, etc requried for the future. Yet, we are loosing hospital beds, kids are crowded into larger (and older) classrooms the whole time cos of money shortages, services for the elderly are at a shocking level, etc etc etc etc. Every census we have had has shown up the age of the population and the needs for all these services. Even when the country was supposed to be awash with money, we still didn't get the services we should have received as a result of the census showing up all this vital information. In my opinion (and an opinion shared by many I have spoken to) its just an exercise in PR and money wasting.

some of the questions I find are very ambigious. Do you speak Irish on a daily basis, weekly, monthly, less often is the wording (or similiar). Now, while I might use irish daily cos I shout to the kids the very odd focal, another person will not consider that as "speaking" irish. There is no quantifying what level I use. How can that be representative of a true answer and fact finding.

 

[Staples]

However, you didn't start out 'asking questions'. You started out with a claim that 'many of the questions are meaningless'. It is clear that this claim has no basis.

In offering the OPINION that there are more efficient ways of establishing required information, I expressed the OPINION that many of the questions are meaningless, particulalrly because much of the information is not productively used. For example, the question about what time you leave home to go for work would be very relevant if it contributed to a transport policy framed around people's schedules. But since there never has been any such policy, the question becomes meaningless - IN MY OPINION. Notwithstanding the presence of the thread in "Letting Off Steam", had I known that some people would require empirical evidence in support of every utterence and that they would so quick to take such umbrage, my language would have been much more guarded.

Dereko

IN MY OPINION, (everybody happy?), the means by which information could be gathered would depend on the use to which it would be put. A good example is the Quarterly National Household Survey which is regarded as the more accurate measurement of unemployment. This is based on a repreentative survey avoiding the need to consult the entire population. Using one of the examples you offered how do you suggest that the census would inform policy in relation to ghost estates?

My point is that IN MY OPINION there are some alternatives to the Census process that are at least worthy of consideration, as is being done in the UK. I appreciate that the threat of change may upset some with an emotional or other attachment to the status quo so, again, apologies to all concerned.

 

[Complainer]

I can only assume that you don't know much about transport policy. You assume that the Census data is not used. I don't know too much about the area, but I'd bet a fiver that the Census data is used extensively by folk at the NRA, RPA, CIE and Dept Transport.

You assume that the alternatives have not been considered. Why would you assume this?

You know what they say about ASS-U-mptions, don't you?

 

[Staples]

You know what they say about ASS-U-mptions, don't you?

I can only assume that you don't know much about transport policy.

If you're going to slag yourself off as well, there's nothing for me to add.

 

[olddog]

1841 census ........ strictly O/T

With so much steam being let off here due to the census I just wanted to post that I found my Great Great Great grandfather and Great Great grandfather from the 1841 census records.

This has totally changed my attitude of what I previously considered as "old history"

 

[DublinTexas]

So Friday the local census mandarin showed up trying to delivery my copy of the form that should give our government the total insight into my personal life to an extend even greater than the evil empire of Google has on me.

Our government as part of the census does not only want to know my name, race, religion and room numbers, now it all wants it linked to my personal name. No, this is not an anonymous data collection; the most personal questions are linked to my name/personal details.

This is how it started in several countries; collect as much personal data as possible and then miss-use that data to get rid of the Jews, communists and other groups.

Now don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that our government wants to know data that helps them to plan but why is it needed to have my name on the form that asks too much personal details?

Why can’t this be done anonymous?

And the only way out of this compulsory (there is even a fine for not doing it) data collection of the most private data is not to be in the country on Sunday 10 April midnight. But even than you can’t escape totally because the form demands you name and other personal details of anybody at the residence that is out of the country.

This is outrages; an incompetent government is getting their hand on a massive data base about the population. And before someone says, but your data is protected, it can only be used by the CSO and only in a limited way they should have done a reality check. It’s there, it can be hacked, it can be miss-used.

I’m already having a nice holiday planned on 10 April and when the census mandarin shows again attempting to deliver the form I’m going to tell her.

 

[Berni]

No, this is not an anonymous data collection; the most personal questions are linked to my name/personal details.
It’s there, it can be hacked, it can be miss-used.

The data are not linked to your name. Your name is never scanned into the database at all.

Your name is only asked for two reasons. Firstly so that the enumerator knows who they have dealt with, and can check that the form looks consistant. Secondly, so that in 100 year time when the forms are made public, they will make sense to those looking them up.