Hundreds of east Clare homes still without census forms

HUNDREDS of East Clare homes are still waiting to receive their forms, almost two weeks after Census night.

The CSO has put the delay down to “a number of factors including enumerator vacancies in a small number of areas, a householder being unable to receive a form in person or an enumerator not having sufficient access to the premises to leave a census form in a secure location”.

While a spokesperson described the number of homes without forms as “small”, local estimates put the figure at at least 500.

It is understood the issue affects areas including Flagmount, Feakle, Scariff, Killaloe and Broadford.

“If you were writing a book about this, people just wouldn’t believe it,” said Councillor Pat Hayes.

“It’s very unsatisfactory and I’m totally annoyed. I understand there was a staffing issue for the CSO, but the solutions that were put in place to solve the problem clearly didn’t work.

“You’d imagine that in the modern world this wouldn’t be such a major issue. The census is a vital document for future planning and development and we certainly don’t want the length of East Clare to be left out.”

It is understood that intensive efforts were made to find alternative means of distributing the census forms after local politicians including Councillor Hayes and Deputy Michael McNamara were inundated with queries.

Efforts were made to distribute the forms by post, but protocol for dealing with incomplete addresses put a spanner in the works.

“The forms were to be distributed by post, but the full address was not put on the envelopes,” Councillor Hayes outlined.

“All that the local postal staff had to go on was the world ‘Householder’ and an Eircode. Generating addresses would have required hours and hours of extra work.

“It turns out that An Post doesn’t allow delivery without proper address details, so all of the forms have had to be returned as undeliverable.

“They’re now to be distributed by courier across East Clare. My understanding is that it could take a couple of weeks for the forms to move through undelivered mail system.”

Postmaster for Feakle and Scariff Brian McMahon said the postal service had made every effort possible.

“While we had the forms in the post office, some people chose to come in and collect them,” he said.

As regards the address issue, Mr McMahon said the service is unable to process mail with Eircodes only.

“We are not provided with the technology needed to research addresses. In addition, postal staff aren’t allowed to write on envelopes, or to put the addresses on them.”

A statement from the CSO said, “In these circumstances the CSO has arranged alternative delivery methods through courier services. It is expected that this will be completed in the coming days.”

It added that once they receive the form, householders must complete them as though it were census night, Sunday, April 3.

“A free post envelope will be included with the census form so that the householder can post back the completed form,” the statement said.

“Please contact the census office at 0818 2022 04 if there are any queries or have not received a census form in recent days.”