The door is dark, well scuffed and very, very closed. After knocking a couple of times the census enumerator shakes his head ruefully. He has made various attempts to speak to the occupants of this house on Gardiner Street, in the middle of Dublin, with zero success.
“Maybe they’ve all got headphones on in there,” Ciarán Lynam says as we trudge down the granite steps and set off for the next address on his list.
The operation that Lynam is part of, which ensures that census forms are delivered to more than two million homes across Ireland, has a logistical complexity that beggars belief.
Of 15,000 people who applied to be enumerators for Census 2016, 4,660 were chosen. In addition there are 430 field supervisors and 44 regional supervisors – not to mention a plethora of maps, lists, codes, forms in Irish and English, translations in 21 other languages, and an awful lot of shoe leather.
You probably think you know how the census works. The enumerator walks down the middle of your road, clear to all in his or her high-visibility jacket; everyone gets their form; job done. But that’s not even the half of it.
The problems of gaining access to apartments and gated complexes across Ireland have been much discussed. Even in leafy suburbs there are complications.
Where I live people are reluctant to open the door to cold-callers lest they be railroaded into changing service providers or signing up to an animal-welfare charity before they can muster the strength to close it again.
Plus, not everybody will be at home on the night in question. What if, God forbid, you’re in a road accident, or have a heart attack? What if you’re arrested for being drunk and disorderly, and you end up spending the night in a cell?
Dorothy Barry is regional supervisor for a north inner-city area that stretches from Dublin Port to Cabra, from Mater Private Hospital to Mountjoy Prison.
“If you’re in the emergency department in a hospital up to midnight you’ll be counted in the hospital,” she says. “If you’re coming up to Dublin from Kerry for the football final on Sunday, and staying over afterwards, you’ll have told your enumerator in Kerry where you intend to stay, and the enumerator for that part of Dublin will make sure you’re actually there. If you change your plans and don’t show up we have to check back, so you’re not missed out – or counted twice.”
In the case of hotels, managers are obliged to provide a full list of guests – by surname only – and the guests are, in turn, obliged to fill in and return their forms accordingly. (Tip: it’s not a good night to be having an affair, folks.)
Personal contact
Before of any of that can happen, however, census forms have to be handed to a member of every household in Ireland. This personal contact, which is also a legal requirement under the Statistics Act 1993, may seem a bit old fashioned in a society where we’re used to doing everything online or on the phone.
But, says Lynam, one of 85 enumerators in Dublin’s north inner city, it’s the only way to establish a sense of trust between enumerator and enumerated – and it makes the census unique.
Lynam has delivered forms to about three-quarters of the 460 homes on his beat, which includes parts of Belvedere Place, Mountjoy Square and Gardiner Street, and contains houses, apartments, small hotels and guesthouses as well as three convents, a presbytery, Temple Street Children’s Hospital and St Monica’s Nursing Home.
“This is the first time I’ve been an enumerator, so my only experience is of this area – and it’s fascinating,” he says.
An architect by profession, Lynam thought he was well up to speed on the nitty-gritty of house entrances and exits, but he admits to being gobsmacked by the housing maze he has encountered here: apartment complexes hidden away in what would once have been the back gardens of upper-crust houses; three-storey dwellings where the address on the upper floor is different from that at street level; rented accommodation both surprisingly good and distressingly bad.
If the housing is diverse the people are even more so. “I live not far from here, and I’ve walked to work for many years, so I thought I had a good idea of the place,” he says. “But really I hadn’t a clue about what might exist behind a hall door. All sorts of contrasts – but a huge richness and diversity. There’d be about 90 per cent non-nationals in this area, and of the 10 per cent who are of Irish ethnicity many are elderly. It’s great.”
Great? Really? The north inner city? Lynam laughs. He was standing at traffic lights, waiting to cross the road, the other day when a taxi driver rolled down her window and called out to him: “Somebody drew the short straw, eh?” His experience, he says, has been exactly the opposite.
“To a person – bar one – people have been polite, engaging, supportive, encouraging,” he says. “And that’s from all countries, all nationalities.”
As for that one person who reacted badly, “maybe they were just having a bad day. But they did undertake to fill out the form, and I’m sure that’s what will happen.”
As we wander around his area of operations it becomes clear that he knows every inch of it and is keen to share his experiences with us. But we have to be careful. The census guarantees confidentiality between enumerator and enumerated – so it’s not okay for a reporter and photographer to rock up as Lynam goes about delivering a form, unless (and even if) the person has agreed to be interviewed in advance.
As we stand on one footpath, however, a smiling young African man approaches. He is, it turns out, responding to a card Lynam put through his door. After a brief conversation between the two of them he volunteers to be in our photograph.
It’s not all sweetness and light. The situation regarding apartment access is, according to Dorothy Barry, “horrible”.
One enumerator reports having had to sit for 40 minutes or more outside a complex in the hope of getting in. Another, having been granted access by the management company, knocked at the door of a ground-floor apartment, signalling to the occupant, who could be clearly seen inside. “The lady came over and just flicked the blinds down. And that was that.”
Bad doors, good doors
"There are situations where you feel you're being ignored, for sure," says Lynam. "And as it progresses it gets worse. If someone won’t open the door the first time, they’re less likely to open it on a second and third visit.” It can take four hours to deliver a dozen forms – not a task for the faint hearted.
But for every bad door there’s at least one good door. The couple who are expecting their first child, “all excited because they’re hoping the baby will arrive in time for them to put it on the census form”. The elderly woman who hinted that she could do with a man to take down (and wash) her net curtains. And the kids who, each time they catch sight of one enumerator in her brightly coloured jacket, call out, “Hello, Mrs Census.”
On Belvedere Place we’re greeted by Ade Stack, a founder of the charity Hugh’s House, which provides temporary accommodation for the families of seriously ill children in nearby hospitals, and invited in for a cuppa.
Lynam emerges from another house bearing a dinnertime offering from its Brazilian occupants: a piping hot fritter known as a coxinha, a yummy concoction of chicken in a cheesy sauce.
There’s even a happy outcome on Gardiner Street, where, long after many people have gone to bed, Lynam manages to get through that forbidding door at the top of the flight of granite steps.
Another census form safely delivered. Just 100 or so to go.
Filling in the census form: ‘It looks worse than it is, but it’s very well explained as you go along’
If you’ve already got your census form you may find its green chunkiness somewhat intimidating.
“It looks worse than it is,” says Ciarán Lynam. “But it’s very well explained as you go along. And it’s not as long as you think. Each green household form can cater for six people resident in the house, but most houses don’t have nearly that number, which means most people don’t have to fill in all the pages.”
The first two inside pages – pages 2 and 3 – feature questions about your accommodation. That’s followed on page 4 by questions about your nationality and ethnicity, moving on page 5 into details of languages spoken, disability, level of dependency and, finally, on page 6, to educational qualifications and occupation.
Only one question on this year’s form is substantially different from the 2011 form, and that’s question 5, on marital status, which had to be amended to take account of new same-sex civil-partnership legislation. (The forms were printed before the marriage-equality referendum.)
Why no other changes? Normally there’s a process of consultation between various bodies about the questions – which is expensive and time-consuming.
“There was a chance that this census wouldn’t take place at all thanks to the austerity programme,” says Dorothy Barry. “Because of recent developments such as emigration, migration and so on, Census 2016 was approved. But it’s what they call a ‘no-change census’, so the form is very similar to the last one.”
So if you’ve already got your census form, make sure you’re sitting comfortably and, come the night of Sunday April 24th, take your time filling it in.
Of all the civic duties you’ll ever be asked to perform, it’s one of the least onerous. And if you haven’t got your form, what are you like? For goodness’ sake, open that door.
