asked the Taoiseach if he will state the number of emigrants who left the country during the year ended 31st December, 1957.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Emigration Statistics.
asked the Taoiseach if he will state the estimated figure for emigration for a 12 months' period ending in 1957.
I propose, with the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, to take Questions Nos. 2 and 3 together.
Reliable figures for total emigration are available only for net emigration in respect of intercensal periods. The reasons for this are set out at length in replies to previous questions on this subject. I would, in particular, refer the Deputies to the replies to Deputy Hession on the 1st May, 1952, to Deputy Declan Costello on the 22nd October, 1952, and to Deputy McQuillan on the 27th October, 1954.
Statistics of emigration by sea to countries outside Europe are compiled annually and are published in the Irish Trade Journal and Statistical Bulletin. The figures in respect of 1957 are not yet available.
Efforts have been made in the past to compute annual net emigration figures but experience has shown that, while these methods may enable total intercensal net emigration to be allocated on an annual basis with some degree of reliability, they do not enable reliable annual figures of net emigration to be computed in advance of intercensal data.
Is it not a fact that the Government would never dare to tell the people the extent of emigration after another year of bungling?
Does not the Deputy know full well that these facts are not available?
Would the Taoiseach incline to the view that a figure of 50,000 would be approximately correct?
I am afraid I could not express any opinion as to the figure.
When will the figures or a reasonable estimate be available?
The explanation has been given by the Parliamentary Secretary in the statement that has just been made that when the census figures over the previous five or ten years are known it is then possible to allocate backwards, not in advance, the annual figures by way of estimation.
Is it not a fact that in the past estimates of annual emigration have been made? They have certainly been published.
Yes, estimates have been made and afterwards the statistical authorities found that the bases on which they were made had become unreliable or unavailable.
Will the Taoiseach say if the Statistics Department has discontinued the procedure which had been carried on by the Registrar General's Office of estimating the annual population from year to year, in an estimated way, until the figures of the census were available and before any adjustment backwards was made?
I do not know what the relation between the Registrar General's Office and the Statistics Department may be but I am sure— because I know that I myself have made representations time after time to the Statistics Department in an effort to get annual figures for emigration and they have told me so—that it is not possible to give an annual estimate except when the results of the census are known and when they can then allocate retrospectively the annual figures.
What about the Fianna Fáil statement that if they were returned last year we would have no emigration?
Is it not a fact that when the work of registering was with the Registrar General's Office under the Department of Local Government an annual estimate was made year by year of population and that was adjusted when a census return became available as the record of year to year estimates of popular tion?
I cannot answer that specifically except to say that I assume, because of representations I myself made to the Statistics Department, that if they were able, by means of the Registrar General's estimates, to get reliable figures that system would have been retained.
In case Deputy General Mulcahy's supplementary question might give rise to any misunderstanding let me say that there is a representative of the Central Statistics Office working in the office of the Registrar General to transfer to the Central Statistics Office all the information which was previously furnished to them.
Is it not a fact that the estimations and calculations carried out by the Registrar General's Office are not now made available?
If the Deputy puts down that question I shall give a definite answer.
And in the meantime would the Taoiseach consider stationing somebody at Shannon airport to see the aeroplanes, on which Deputy Russell I believe has information, exclusively filled with Irish speakers from Connemara?
But you did not want Shannon airport.