Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 10 November 2020
160. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Taoiseach if the Central Statistics Office field staff will be temporarily redeployed on a part-time basis to conduct contact tracing as they cannot undertake their contracted duties in full during the current public health restrictions. [34529/20]
View answerThe Central Statistics Office employs 86 permanent and around 40 temporary backup interviewers. The main role of the field force is to collect survey data from households throughout the country to fulfil a range of national data needs and EU regulations. These surveys include the Labour Force Survey (LFS) which is used to compile a number of key economic indicators of employment, unemployment and other characteristics of the labour market, the Survey of Income and Living Conditions (SILC), which is the source of official statistics on household income, poverty and deprivation.
Prior to the introduction of Covid 19 restrictions in March 2020, the interviewers called to dwellings and invited the householders to participate in the CSO surveys. Now they issue an invitation to take part letter followed by a phone call. Face to face interviewing has been suspended since March and the CSO interviewers are now conducting the main household surveys using Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) from their homes.
The data compiled from these surveys provide an essential input to government for policy and decision making especially during the Covid crisis. There is a continuous demand for timely data to assess the impact of the crisis on society and the economy. The CSO interviewers are responsible for the collection of the survey data.
The CSO has recently worked with the Health Protection Surveillance Centre on a Retrospective Contact Tracing Project. In addition to providing the IT platform for the survey and specialist expertise the CSO has also offered to provide a number of backup interviewers to conduct the telephone inquiries.
In March the CSO provided around 60 office based staff who were trained by the HSE to assist with contact tracing. The HSE didn’t use this team of people at that time and they have subsequently returned to their normal duties.
