How the 2011 Irish census works #infographic

With only a month to go to the 2011 census night on April 10 the Central Statistics Office has released an infographic explaining how this year’s form was created.

According to the graphic over 2 million census forms will be printed this year, these will then be delivered to every home in the country from 440 regional offices.

After the April 10 census night the forms will be collected, scanned and analysed for publication by the CSO from July.

This census form has been two years in the making, in 2009 the CSO piloted this year’s questions in over 10,000 homes across Dublin, Cork, Fingal, Monaghan, Kerry, Galway, Laois and Wicklow. This responses were then reviewed by government in December 2010 – it was at this point that the final set of questions were then agreed upon and the census date was set.

This year the census will contain 30 questions, including “23 for children under 15, spread over 3 pages for each person. Of these 30 questions the first 23 must be completed in respect of everybody including children, while the remaining 7 must be completed by all persons over age 15 as appropriate to them.”

The CSO’s is ramping up its public information campaign ahead of the delivery of the census forms in mid-march. This infographic is one of a number on the census.ie website and is designed to accompany television and radio ads this month.