In a society saturated with suspicions about government agendas, supplying personal details about religion, employment and living arrangements has not always come naturally.
During the 1971 census, Catholic priests in Belfast refused to complete their forms, thousands were publicly burnt in republican areas and census workers asked for protection to carry out their duties. The situation further deteriorated in 1981 when the census coincided with the Maze hunger strike. Republican paramilitaries had no difficulty in dissuading people from filling in the forms. There was widespread intimidation of census workers, with 24-year-old enumerator Ms Joanne Mathers being shot dead in Derry. "Those were mad times," says Mr Mark McLernon, a Sinn Fein press officer. "But you mustn't get the wrong end of the stick. The protests had nothing to do with the census itself. It simply created a great opportunity for civil disobedience."
He points to 1991, when Sinn Fein urged supporters to co-operate with the census, albeit with the justification that the data would "help to expose the inadequacies of British government policy in the North". Almost 99 per cent of the population then complied, up nearly 5 per cent from 1981. With this month's census, due to be held on April 29th, it seems the party no longer needs such ulterior motives. "The census is the basis for the provision of valuable services from which all of us, community groups, prisoner groups, Irish language and culture groups, benefit. The more complete and correct the data given, the better for all of us," Mr McLernon says. The North's Finance Minister, the SDLP's Mr Mark Durkan, whose Department is in charge of the census, thinks Sinn Fein's sentiments of civic duty have much to do with the fact that two of the Executive departments most dependent on the information, Health and Education, are now headed by Sinn Fein ministers. The North's registrar general, Dr Norman Caven, insists people's fears that their details could be used for anything other than service planning purposes are "completely without foundation". The 3,000 census workers, who will collect and process data from 650,000 households have to sign a legal undertaking not to disclose any information, which would see them prosecuted if breached. For the first time, the Northern Ireland census will contain a question on ethnicity, as required under the 1997 race relations legislation. People will be asked to tick "White, Chinese, Irish Traveller, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Black Caribbean, Black African or Black Other". There will be a question on religious affiliation, which has been a standard feature of the Northern Ireland census since the 1860s, to monitor Catholic population growth. Taking account of changing family patterns, there will be a new question about the "relationship between each person in the household". Other novelties include a question on whether people provide unpaid help for somebody with a long-term illness or disability. Specific to the North are new questions on the "lowest floor level of accommodation" and "number of stories of accommodation" to verify what percentage of the elderly, disabled and families with young children live in unsuitable housing. Despite earlier plans, there will be no question on income. While the information would be "highly useful", Mr Durkan says, his Department felt it could also be counter-productive. "With many people, especially the self-employed and those on benefits, not able to give reliable information on their income, such a question could distort the accuracy of the census results. In addition, we felt that it would only increase people's suspicion about ulterior government motives and heighten the risk of non-compliance."
The Northern Ireland census is expected to cost around £8 million sterling, with the first results available in summer 2002. Translation leaflets can be obtained in Irish, Ulster Scots, Chinese, Hindi, Urdu, Arabic, Punjabi and Bengali.