Madam, - By claiming that the Census figures represent little more than one-third of the actual numbers of Polish immigrants, Conor Lenihan, Minister of State for integration, has effectively accused most Poles in this country of dishonesty and serious breaches of the law. Failure to comply with census enumeration is a serious offence. A Polish translation of the census form made this clear.
Mr Lenihan's comments also cast doubts on the diligence of census enumerators - and he made these allegations, it would appear, on the basis of mere suspicion rather than hard evidence.
I worked as an enumerator in an area of Dublin with a high immigrant population. Apartments and houses were visited several times by myself and my colleagues. For example, I visited one house set in apartments on more than 20 occasions at various times of the day.
Polish and other immigrants were extremely helpful and I did not come across a single effort on their part to defraud the census. The only attempts to obstruct my work as an enumerator came from Irish people who slammed their doors in my face in the belief that I was a TV licence inspector. - Yours, etc,
SEAMUS MARTIN,
Dublin 8.