Madam, – Tomorrow we fill in our census forms, and it is important that we give an accurate answer to the question on religion. Many people may be tempted to answer this question by ticking the religion they grew up with, rather than reflecting their current religious belief or lack of belief.
The census results are used to predict future demand for State services such as schools and hospitals, and other policies. If we get a falsely very high figure for Roman Catholics, and a falsely very low figure for people with no religion, it makes it more likely that the State will discriminate against people of other religions and nonreligious people when providing these services.
Also, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin says that it “does not make use of baptismal registers for calculating the Catholic population of the Archdiocese of Dublin. It relies solely on the data from the Central Statistics Office, obtained through the census, by which citizens themselves choose to record, or not, their religious affiliation”. So careless answers to the question of religion will have an impact on the allocation of State resources, and on the political lobbying power of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. If we want a fair future based on accurate statistics, we must all answer this question honestly. – Yours, etc,