Our statistics about Ireland are independent and reliable, because you told us.
The information you give us lets us create a very accurate picture of what it means to live in Ireland today—our lives, our economy, our health, our education, our happiness and well-being.
This survey, which is being undertaken by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), gathers information on your experience of feeling safe and unsafe in your everyday life including personal life, at work and during your free time had throughout your lifetime. You can complete the survey yourself online with instructions included to help you along the way.
The CSO is Ireland’s national statistics office, and our purpose is to impartially collect, analyse and make available statistics about Ireland, our people and society. We collect data under the Statistics Act 1993 to provide official statistics to inform decision making across all aspects of Irish society. We run several household and business surveys, as well as the census, to collect and report on statistics about all aspects of life.
As Ireland's national statistical office, the CSO’s role is to support research and public policy by producing impartial and robust data reflecting Ireland’s economy, people and society. There is a breadth and depth of statistical expertise in the CSO, but the CSO is also cognisant of the particularly sensitive nature of data and the unique challenges associated with its collection. As a result, during the design phase of the survey the CSO worked closely with key stakeholders and also our international colleagues in Eurostat and other National Statistical Institutes.
It is important that everyone sampled takes part; participants are chosen at random from the population that is 18 years or older. The information we collect from this survey will assist government departments, agencies and others in making policies in the future. No one will be identifiable from the information we collect. All the information collected is treated with strict confidentiality and anonymised. This means that you or your household will not be identifiable from any information you provide.
It is extremely important that we collect information from people who have experienced feeling unsafe and from those who have not. This is the first time the CSO is carrying out this survey. The information we get from you will help shape policies in the future.
The CSO is Ireland’s statistical agency and carries out surveys regularly. It is impossible to ask everyone in the country to take part so the CSO design sample surveys, which are sent to people at random. This is a sample survey, and you have been chosen randomly from the population to take part. Your participation will represent others who haven’t been sampled which is why it’s so important that you take part, no matter what your experience might be.
The CSO collects contact details from a wide range of sources, both from social surveys and statistical data sources made available to us under the Statistics Act, 1993. All data collected and used by the CSO is stored securely and is only used for the purpose of producing national and international statistics.
It is impossible to ask everyone in the country to take part, so we randomly select people from the population to complete the survey and they represent everybody else. We cannot accept volunteers to fill out the survey as it will affect the statistical methodology behind our sampling process. If you would like to speak with somebody about your experiences, contact details for a number of services are listed below.
We want to gather your data so don’t worry if you cannot do the survey online. If you want to discuss other ways to complete the survey you can call us at 021 453 5110. We can discuss either getting an interviewer to call to your door to explain how to log on or possibly help you with the survey.
This survey is voluntary, you don’t have to take part but your voice matters. We need as many people as possible to take part to ensure the data that is collected represents everyone. We can’t survey everyone in the country, this is why you have been chosen at random as part of a sample survey. If you have any questions about the survey, you can call us at 021 453 5110 or you can email us at CSOTakePart@cso.ie. You can also find more information about the survey on our website, or on our social media channels such as Instagram, Facebook or X (Twitter).
We analyse the data and publish it by age group, gender, county but it is anonymised. Nobody is identifiable from this data. We never share your data with any other agency or government department and once published we delete data that we don’t require.
Confidentiality is a core value of the CSO. The CSO will never share your information with another company, business or Government Department or body. We only use your data for statistical purposes. That means we remove all identifying information such as your name and your specific address. We use broad information such as the general area where you live (e.g. Cork), your age and your sex and then aggregate this data so nobody is identifiable from the data provided.
It depends on your experiences, but we have timed it and we believe that, on average, it won’t take longer than 30 mins.
If you affected by any of the issues raised in this survey, you can click here for some helpful Support Services.
Learn about our data and confidentiality safeguards, and the steps we take to produce statistics that can be trusted by all.