Sir, – I would like to address the queries that have been raised by Dr EF Keane’s letter (July 13th).
The census enumerators did an admirable job in collecting census forms from approximately 1.7 million households. Approximately 6,400 households which were considered to have been occupied on census night failed to return a completed census form for a variety of reasons. These included householders who moved or, sadly, passed away before the enumerator returned to collect the form.
The payment of enumerators is based on the number of forms delivered and collected, so it was in their interest to ensure that repeated calls were made to households to ensure all forms were collected.
Nevertheless it is inevitable that there were a small number of cases where enumerators’ efforts to collect census forms were unsuccessful and, to accommodate the return of these forms, there was a widely-publicised facility for householders, whose form had not been collected by May 9th, to return their completed census form by post to PO Box 2011, Freepost 4726, Swords, Co Dublin. This facility is still available and CSO will be happy to receive any uncollected forms by post.
Finally, this office has developed our census procedures to ensure that the population count for the census is as close to 100 per cent complete as possible.
In all cases where enumerators were sure a dwelling was occupied on Census night but failed to get a completed census form, they recorded the approximate age, sex and nationality of the occupants by referring to data collected when the form was delivered and, if necessary by making discreet inquiries locally. The estimated number of persons in these households which failed to make a return was 13,800, representing less than a third of one per cent of the total population. This number ranks very well by international standards and results from a very tight field operation with 440 field supervisors and 4,854 enumerators on the ground for a period of five weeks both before and after census night. – Yours, etc,