Census 2016 will be unchanged from the last one carried out five years ago save for one question recognising the legal status of same sex marriages.
The Central Statistics Office said today that this year’s census would be a ‘no change’ Census and that questions on issues such as religion and ethnicity would follow the same format as 2011.
The CSO has said that given the recession it did not have the resources or budget to conduct a public consultation or test new questions when preparing for this nationwide exercise.
Such testing involves a pilot survey of around 12,000 dwellings and should have been conducted in 2013 and 2014. However, resources were not available to allow such an exercise to go ahead.
There has been criticism that the questions on religion are too binary. People filling the form are asked what is their religion. There are five religions stated, including Catholic and Church of Ireland. There is a further two choces, another religion (to be written in) or no religion.
Some critics of that section have said it should distinguish between those practicing a religion and those who have lapsed or no longer practice a religion,
Census 2016 was launched by Taoiseach Enda Kenny and by CSO chief executive Pádraig Dalton in Government Buildings on Wednesday.
The day of the Census is Sunday, 24 April, and all citizens who spend that night in the State are expected to fill out the 24-page form.
The last census in 2011 gave the population as 4,588,252 and the new census will show the net increase or decrease in population over five years.
Among the guests in the Italian Room of Government Buildings were two centenarians, 106-year-old Dorothea Findlater, from South Dublin, and 100-year-old Theresa Moran who lives in Raheny.
Ms Findlater was entered in the census of 1911 in Co Kildare and in every census since then, 18 in all. Her great-grand-daughter, Lexi Carter, aged one, was also present at the launch.
Mr Kenny paid tribute to Ms Findlate and Ms Moran and said that a lady whom he had met when leaving a hospital last week told him that babies born today might live to 120 or more, thanks to advances in technology and medicine.
He said the cenuss on April 24 would “shape understanding of life in our country today”.
“It will tell a story of how Ireland has changed and is changing over time. It will equip us to deal with the requirements of Ireland in the future.”
He said that the information collected would have a critical input into decisions on where to build schools, how the population is ageing and transport needs.
He said it will also inform about the number of languages being spoken in Ireland, 22 in all at present, as well as information on things as diverse as how people travel to work and school, and what access there is to rural broadband.
Mr Dalton said that 5,200 field staff will have responsibility for taking and collecting census forms. He said the CSO enjoyed a huge deal of trust from the public because it protected the confidentiality of their information.
“We have an unblemished record of protecting confidentiality of all census information,” he said.
