Sir, - Before the 1996 census you published a letter in which I queried the validity of any date which might result from the question as put. It is disappointing to find (The Irish Times, December 18th) the resultant census information presented as if it related in some way to Irish realities.
I wrote: "The current census form due for completion on April 28th, 1996, has a new question: `Indicate whether the person can speak Irish by inserting a tick in the appropriate box. If the person can speak Irish please indicate frequency.' We are told in the notes that `This question should be answered for persons aged three years and over. Leave blank for children under 3 years of age.'
"Furthermore - `Any person who fails or refuses to provide this information or who knowingly provides false information may be subject to a fine of up to £1,000.'
"No indication of any quantitive measure of ability to be applied is given.
"How is any household head to know what standard to apply or how to assess ability to speak? Are we to have domestic orals? Does speaking Irish involve knowledge of a vocabulary of 500 or 5,000 words? Does it mean ability to converse with the same facility as one does in English? Does the exchange of the token phrases with which some politicians and others involved in conspicuous nationalism used to interlard their speeches count as speaking Irish?
"My OED defines statistics as numerical facts or data and a census as an enumeration of the population with the statistics relating to it.
"How can these questions be answered objectively? How can they produce numerical facts or data or any basis for statistical analysis?
"How are they part of a national census?"
While my letter attracted the inevitable abuse from those who expect everybody to touch their forelock submissively where the success of the language restoration programme is concerned, the questions I raised two years ago have still to be answered. Until they are, the only fact is that everybody in the country under the age of 75 could speak Irish if they were motivated to, but they don't! - Yours, etc., Michael Gorman,
Park Avenue, Sandymount, Dublin 4.