Who carried out the last Irish Census?

mute101

Who did the CSO hire to carry out the last census, (it was in 2008 i think).

This year it looks like a company called CACI have been given the contract. CACI have a very dodgy history relating to torture interrogations allegations in the Iraq war.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6621486727392146155#

http://www.sovereignindependent.com/?p=15863

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/mar/06/scotland-census-abu-ghraib




www.RealityIreland.com

flogen

The CSO are carrying out the 2011 census, just as they have done in the past. CACI have designed the questionnaires & the software that reads the answers given.

CACI did the 2006 census too (and the 2001 one), according to the company itself:

http://www.caci.co.uk/444.aspx

The contract, awarded by the Central Statistics Office in Ireland (CSO), for census printing and data capture services, is for the 2011 Census. This will be the third Census where CACI has provided an automated forms processing solution and printing services for the CSO, having previously managed both the 2001 and 2006 Census projects.

mute101

Has an irish company ever performed this task?

Is there an irish company capable to doing it do you know?

I hate the idea of doing business with this war profiteering company!

BrianD

Looks like once you have a tax clearance certificate you can sweep any human rights abuses under the carpet!

Shall we expect to to se Abu Ghraib style photos featuring anybody who didn't fill out the form?

mute101

BrianD wrote: »

Looks like once you have a tax clearance certificate you can sweep any human rights abuses under the carpet!

Shall we expect to to se Abu Ghraib style photos featuring anybody who didn't fill out the form?

Who knows Brian. I wouldnt be surprised because its not as if the Irish would stand up for themselves nowadays. But lets hope im wrong.






www.realityireland.com

Eochaidh

I couldn't agree more, it is a bit sickening that tax payers money will be going to line the pockets of a company so intimately involved in that war.

There's an online petition running to voice opposition, I've started a new thread with the link. I don't imagine it will stop the census at this stage, but at least it will highlight the matter, let the Government know that people are concerned by this.

Eochaidh

http://www.petitiononline.com/Census11/petition.html

We the undersigned petition to urge the Irish Government to cancel their contract with CACI (UK), who have been contracted to collect data from Irish citizens for the upcoming Census 2011.

CACI (UK) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of US contractor CACI International. CACI have faced heavy criticism for their role as interrogators at Abu Ghraib prison during the height of the prisoner abuse scandal in 2004.

CACI International are known to have interrogated people detained without charge at Abu Ghraib. They did so under US rules of engagement that permitted sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation and intimidation by dogs. Without the support of the United States these practices would generally be considered to violate international human rights norms.

Former Abu Ghraib detainee's allege that they were subjected to electric shocks, sexual assault, brutal beatings and mock executions during the period of CACI led interrogations.

We the undersigned would like to state our unequivocal opposition to the proposed role of CACI (UK) in the upcoming Irish census, and the use of Irish taxpayers money to support organizations involved in human rights abuses.

http://www.petitiononline.com/Census11/petition.html


Link to us at... http://boycottcensus2011.blogspot.com/

GerardKeating

Eochaidh wrote: »

http://www.petitiononline.com/Census11/petition.html

We the undersigned petition to urge the Irish Government to cancel their contract with CACI (UK), who have been contracted to collect data from Irish citizens for the upcoming Census 2011.

CACI (UK) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of US contractor CACI International. CACI have faced heavy criticism for their role as interrogators at Abu Ghraib prison during the height of the prisoner abuse scandal in 2004.

CACI International are known to have interrogated people detained without charge at Abu Ghraib. They did so under US rules of engagement that permitted sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation and intimidation by dogs. Without the support of the United States these practices would generally be considered to violate international human rights norms.

Former Abu Ghraib detainee's allege that they were subjected to electric shocks, sexual assault, brutal beatings and mock executions during the period of CACI led interrogations.

We the undersigned would like to state our unequivocal opposition to the proposed role of CACI (UK) in the upcoming Irish census, and the use of Irish taxpayers money to support organizations involved in human rights abuses.

http://www.petitiononline.com/Census11/petition.html


Link to us at... http://boycottcensus2011.blogspot.com/

It's a bit late in the day for this, the contract was awarded 14 months ago, the time to do something was then not now.

Eochaidh

Oh I'd agree there's not much chance of getting rid of them now, but thats not the point, the point is to show the Government there's opposition and serious concern about this appointment, it highlights the issue, and hopefully if we highlight the issue enough the government will get the point and maybe it might get them to consider more carefully who they contract with in future.

BrianD

GerardKeating wrote: »

It's a bit late in the day for this, the contract was awarded 14 months ago, the time to do something was then not now.

Nobody knew about these facts now. The Census can be stopped now and a lesson in ethical standards will be hard learned.

Here's the response that I got from the CSO.

The census is a major undertaking for the CSO and contractors have been
employed to assist with specialized parts of the work. For 2011 the
contract for the design and print of the census forms, and the provision
and onsite support of the hardware and software required for the scanning,
capture and coding of the census forms was awarded to CACI UK, which is an
independent subsidiary of CACI International. CACI UK were first awarded
the contract for the processing of the 2002 and 2006 censuses and won the
2011 contract after an open competitive procurement process run under EU
competitive tendering law which applies to all public bodies. Of the
proposals received by the CSO, CACI (UK)’s gave best value for the
taxpayer. EU rules do not allow bidders to be excluded because they are
foreign companies. The census forms were printed by a Dublin printer.

In August 2003, CACI International Inc provided staff to the US Army to
conduct IT and intelligence work in Iraq including interrogation services.
Subsequently, in spring 2004 an allegation was made that a CACI employee
had been involved in the mistreatment of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison
in Iraq. This allegation was not substantiated by any evidence or proof at
the time it was made, and subsequent investigations by both CACI and the US
government could not confirm it. CACI have stated publicly that they take
this allegation extremely seriously, that they do not condone, tolerate or
endorse any illegal behavior by its employees in any circumstances or at
any time and they have, and always will, hold themselves to the highest
ethical standards.

The Central Statistics Office is fundamentally committed to ethical and
proper conduct in all matters and would never have any dealings with a
company convicted of human rights abuse. EU procurement rules do allow
bidders to be excluded if they have been convicted of certain criminal or
other offences but none of these exclusions applies to CACI (UK) - or
indeed to its US parent. The US parent company strongly denies the
allegations made against it and makes clear its abhorrence of human rights
violations.

Confidentiality is the cornerstone of all work conducted by the CSO. All
information collected in the census is treated as strictly confidential by
the CSO and will be used only for statistical purposes. This
confidentiality is guaranteed by law. Under the Statistics Act 1993 the
Central Statistics Office is prohibited by law from divulging any
individual information to any third party, be it a Government Department or
agency, or a private enterprise. The CSO is the only organisation that
will have access to identifiable census information relating to individuals
or households.

All staff working on the census (HQ, field or contract) have been signed up
as Officers of Statistics. The penalty for any breaches of confidentiality
by staff, permanent or contract, can be as high as €25,000. All are made
fully aware of their legal obligations in this respect.

The CSO is justifiably proud of its unblemished record in protecting the
confidentiality of data. It is one of the CSO's top priorities to maintain
this record.

Every household present in the State on Census night, April 10th, has a
legal obligation to complete a Census form under the Statistics Act 1993
and the Statistics (Census of Population) Order 2010.

flogen

BrianD wrote: »

Nobody knew about these facts now.

What facts?

flogen

mute101 wrote: »

Who knows Brian. I wouldnt be surprised because its not as if the Irish would stand up for themselves nowadays. But lets hope im wrong.






www.realityireland.com

If you want to link to a particular website in all of your posts you should probably add it to your sig.

flogen

I've merged the petition thread with this one - there's no need for two separate discussions on the same topic.

BrianD

flogen wrote: »

What facts?

The fact that the CACI are a contractor to the CSO and their dubious history. I wasn't aware of this until now. Nor was I aware of their involvement with military contractors (mercenaries) in Iraq.

To be honest I thought that the CSO did the work in house. What did they do before 2001?

flogen

BrianD wrote: »

The fact that the CACI are a contractor to the CSO and their dubious history. I wasn't aware of this until now. Nor was I aware of their involvement with military contractors (mercenaries) in Iraq.

To be honest I thought that the CSO did the work in house. What did they do before 2001?

Ok, though you said nobody knew these facts when the contract was awarded last year. Plenty of people did but no-one seemed pushed about objecting to it in any meaningful way during that time.

flogen

ELECTRIXON wrote: »

Flogen, you seem very dismissive of this... when you say "plenty of people" knew about this last year.. what are you referring to exactly?
a) that CACI were awarded the contract
or
b) that they were hired for interrogation purposes in in Iraq.

i would suggest that on both of these points.. this information was not widely known about.

FYI the contact was awarded in July 2009
http://debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/2010/01/19/00075.asp

Dismissive of what? The call to boycott the census due to CACI's involvement?

I disagreed with the notion that 'nobody' knew about the awarded contract or allegations around CACI/Iraq. While it's impossible to quantify I would still say that plenty of people knew about both, too.

As the Guardian article linked above says the allegations surfaced in 2004; as for the awarding of the contract that would have been easy to learn about just by watching etenders.gov.ie (which a lot of people do for various reasons) or even visiting the CACI website where they had a press release on the matter for some time now.

flogen

ELECTRIXON wrote: »

Yes, exactly that.

Well I'm quite cynical about online petitions in general; they're a very easy way for people to register their protest without having to actually do anything and a very easy thing to ignore.

That's aside from the fact that this one was drawn up long after the offending facts were in the public domain and long after anything real could be done about it even if people were so inclined.

So your view is that "plenty" knew and said nothing?... A very becoming Irish trait is that. The big Apathy.

Or maybe plenty knew and didn't think it mattered, I don't know. Maybe it's just down to people failing to educate themselves.

Either way there's nothing specifically Irish about this.

flogen

ELECTRIXON wrote: »

Oh dear...

They were awarded the contract in July 2009...
their press release confirming this is from January 2010..

Furthermore this is no mention of CACI on the CRO website except for two documents in 2006...

http://www.cso.ie/search/searchResults.htm?cx=007477919376516988184%3Akd8dk_fgnnq&cof=FORID%3A11&ie=UTF-8&q=CACI&sa=Search&siteurl=www.cso.ie%2F#256

needless to say.. the news pages have no mention of the contract in 2009, 2010 or 2011

http://www.cso.ie/census/census_latest_news.htm


So tell me this... how would your average Irish person know about this unless they (like you) are watching the etenders.gov.ie or would be checking out the CACI website...??

Who said anything about 'the average Irish person'? All it takes is one passionate, committed person to find and disseminate the information, neither of which is hard to do in today's world.

This is the kind of thing I would have expected many campaigners to be all over, specifically on sites like Indymedia, politics.ie etc.

I mean come on.. are you being serious? When did these sites become news services?

Do they have to be news services to be used finding information?

Tell me.. how would you suggest people protest? Or do you protest? Is protest in general covered by your cynicism?

I don't suggest people protest in any particular way, I just think certain means are better than others. Generally speaking the more passive the means the easier they are for the targets to ignore.

flogen

ELECTRIXON wrote: »

that describes me to a T... but i did not know... ok ther is so much going on in this information age that often things slip past... but this is different..
what this says to me is that there has been a massive failure here in Ireland.. not just on the behalf of our public service (which includes some news RTÉ) but also on the media... mainstream and alt..

There's a massive debate to be had on this issue which I don't think it's worth getting in to on a forum but put simply I think:

1) There are problems with all Irish media outlets because journalists are generally unable (or perhaps in some cases unwilling) to dig in to stories due to time/financial constraints. Most of the media are too busy chasing the 'news agenda' to be allowed to sit back and look into the detail.

2) The information overload you mention yourself is having a huge impact on the ability of news outlets to provide relevant information and context. Things get missed as more things become available & the aforementioned pressure on an ever-reducing number of staff journalists to produce an ever-increasing amount of copy isn't helping that.

to a massive degree.

OK, but you said you were the kind of person who would find and disseminate information out of a personal passion. How can you do that effectively if you rely massively on news services? Surely you're not providing much to the process if you're simply repeating what the news media is already saying.

certain? please enlighten me

It's not complicated; maybe people who feel strongly about this should protest at the CSO office? It would be a good way to get people (news media, officials, the general public) to take notice and would also show the real amount of anger out there on this issue.

+ can you merge this thread please...

I can't - I don't have mod rights for the politics forum.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056210866[/QUOTE]

florance

AR 15-6 Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Detention
Facility and 205th Military Intelligence Brigade
MG George R. Fay
pages 34-176
[alleged incident(s) #1-#43 pages 71-95]

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:fNLlR3rcRJQJ:news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/dod/fay82504rpt.pdf+fay+report&hl=en&gl=ie&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESgSSh36xOGYWkoGRvi2gxnDl47tSEd3xxZKzhVOtKlnh2ALd6lSLnZr6CcEtwpqHun57wM1tN6c9Gzd4NJK6ieuzIUOflwSaXQ1BnocKPfCZMpeRGVS3rcX1T8wKlMWoZY_jvZ7&sig=AHIEtbRpmK2eZPuXLTg6Ih3iYLnA8nq6vw

edwinkane

BrianD wrote: »

The fact that the CACI are a contractor to the CSO and their dubious history. I wasn't aware of this until now. Nor was I aware of their involvement with military contractors (mercenaries) in Iraq.

To be honest I thought that the CSO did the work in house. What did they do before 2001?

Why should their involvement with mercenaries in Iraq be thought a disgrace?

WHat was it about their "involvement" which you think makes them unfit to do this work?

BrianD

edwinkane wrote: »

Why should their involvement with mercenaries in Iraq be thought a disgrace?

With immoral "guns for hire" who operate outside the Geneva Convention? Mercenaries and security contractors are no different to common criminal. At least a terrorist has some sort cause to fight for. Why would it be anything other than a disgrace? We've all seen the abuse that happened in Abu Ghraib. Everybody finds it disgraceful and unacceptable.

WHat was it about their "involvement" which you think makes them unfit to do this work?

It is completely unacceptable that a company that has been accused of human rights abuses can be employed by the State - particularly when they were so closely connected to the abuse that perpetrated. CACI were there - they have acknowledged the fact as has the CSO. As far as I can ascertain they have not been convicted of any human rights abuses but there seems to be cases in front of the courts in the states. There seems to be a complex arguement of immunity. The question has to be asked why are they seeking immunity?

People who are complicit in abuse rely on good people doing nothing, staying silent or bureaucracy that says "we are aware of that but they don't have an formal conviction".

Don't fill out your form, sign the back of it and return it to the enumerator.

Also I find it difficult it accept the assurances of data security from a company that has this record.

melekalikimaka

BrianD wrote: »

Don't fill out your form, sign the back of it and return it to the enumerator.
QUOTE]


and get taken to court... no thanks


what if i get interrogated??? I hear CACI got the rights to that too...


jeez grow up, its done now, why waste more money on silly things like this. build a bridge, we have more pressing matters to attend to in this country then who they are a sub company of... typical lefties and their fights for justice...

always reminds me of the knights who say ni tbh

edwinkane

BrianD wrote: »

It is completely unacceptable that a company that has been accused of human rights abuses can be employed by the State -

So an accusation of human rights abuses is enough, in your opinion, to bar anyone from working for the Irish state?

Why do you think the state doesn't share your opinion and have emploued this company?

edwinkane

BrianD wrote: »

It is completely unacceptable that a company that has been accused of human rights abuses can be employed by the State -

So an accusation of human rights abuses is enough, in your opinion, to bar anyone from working for the Irish state?

Why do you think the state doesn't share your opinion and have employed this company?

leeroybrown

If the state prevented CACI (or another similar company) from getting a contract on the basis of 'alleged' wrongdoings elsewhere they'd almost certainly be sued and lose the case.

If people posting feel strongly about this issue they should raise it by contacting the CSO, the government department in question, the Minister in question, their constituency TDs and TDs/Senators with a history of human rights work. If enough people do this then the issue will be raised publicly. Enough of the pointless e-petitions...

cyberhog

leeroybrown wrote: »

If the state prevented CACI (or another similar company) from getting a contract on the basis of 'alleged' wrongdoings elsewhere they'd almost certainly be sued and lose the case.

I think it's a little more than "alleged" wrongdoing. It is clear from the Fay report that CACI employees were complicit in unlawful activity.

(28) (U) Finding: CIVILIAN-21, Interrogator, CACI employee. A preponderance of evidence supports that CIVILIAN-21 did, or failed to do, the following:

Inappropriate use of dogs.

Detainee abuse.

Making false statements.

Failed to report detainee abuse.

Detainee Humiliation.


(25) (U) Finding: CIVILIAN-11, Interrogator, CACI employee. A preponderance of evidence supports that CIVILIAN11 did, or failed to do, the following:

Detainee abuse.

Threatened the Iraqi Police.

Used dogs during the IP Roundup in an unauthorized manner.

Placed a detainee in an unauthorized stress position.

Failed to prevent a detainee from being photographed.

http://fl1.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/dod/fay82504rpt.pdf

leeroybrown

cyberhog wrote: »

I think it's a little more than "alleged" wrongdoing. It is clear from the Fay report that CACI employees were complicit in unlawful activity.

Would it stand up in an Irish court in the event of a legal challenge to a tender not being awarded on this basis? I sincerely doubt it.

BrianD

leeroybrown wrote: »

Would it stand up in an Irish court in the event of a legal challenge to a tender not being awarded on this basis? I sincerely doubt it.

Would they contest it?

Would they risk the publicity? Probably not.

It's not unusual for those who do wrong to use the law to obstruct justice.

leeroybrown

If they threatened to contest it the legal advice to the government would likely be to back down. I'm not getting into a discussion about the rights and wrongs of the situation.

mute101

Does anyone know what the fine was for the last Census in 2006?

Was it €25,000 then as well?

leeroybrown

Yes it will have been the same. The "Statistics Act, 1993" provides for a maximum £20,000 fine which when converted to euro is €25,384.76.

sdanseo

YOU MUST COMPLETE THE CENSUS.

It is wholly too late for anyone to do anything about the company that designed the questionnaire. (The CSO website states that the forms were printed in Ireland, by the way).

I'm not happy to hear we've hired a company that was involved in this shíte either but at the end of the day, it was 8 years ago, it was an extremely small number of people, it was a different company, it was on the other side of the world and it was at the behest of the US government.

Anyone even considering not filling in the census should be ashamed of themselves - it's done once every five years and takes 30 minutes of your time to collate information that will be accessible for generations. Haven't you ever considered it handy that you can look up your ancestors from 1901, etc online?

People need to grow up and stop worrying so hugely over things which simply cannot and will not be changed. That petition is as useless as an Iraqi Vodka wholesaler.

mute101

sdonn wrote: »

YOU MUST COMPLETE THE CENSUS.

It is wholly too late for anyone to do anything about the company that designed the questionnaire. (The CSO website states that the forms were printed in Ireland, by the way).

I'm not happy to hear we've hired a company that was involved in this shíte either but at the end of the day, it was 8 years ago, it was an extremely small number of people, it was a different company, it was on the other side of the world and it was at the behest of the US government.

Anyone even considering not filling in the census should be ashamed of themselves - it's done once every five years and takes 30 minutes of your time to collate information that will be accessible for generations. Haven't you ever considered it handy that you can look up your ancestors from 1901, etc online?

People need to grow up and stop worrying so hugely over things which simply cannot and will not be changed. That petition is as useless as an Iraqi Vodka wholesaler.

Ive never heard such rubbish!!!! LOL. Dont listen to this fella everyone. Feel free to think for yourselves!! There is a group being set up at the moment which will advise you of your rights. All the best.

sdanseo

mute101 wrote: »

Ive never heard such rubbish!!!! LOL. Dont listen to this fella everyone. Feel free to think for yourselves!! There is a group being set up at the moment which will advise you of your rights. All the best.

Sigh.

All these folks who think they can breach every law they want because it doesn't suit them are nothing more than anarchists.

Anarchy doesn not work in a civilised society. Society has so many people that it has to be a certain amount of compromise. Laws are made for the common good of everyone, and nobody should be allowed throw them to the wind as they see fit. That's why every time I see some hippy getting smacked by a Garda during a protest, I tend to think "too fúcking right".

You're an example of the whole indymedia-type gombeen who thinks theyre right, thinks the establishment and its laws are for everyone except you, and think you have the right to flout the law. You don't. If you don't agree with a law, by all means petition to have them changed. Join a political party. Run for the Dáil. That's how these things are done. Civil disobendience is not the way to protest and to be honset, those who do it look like a pile of total prats.

expectationlost

wow surprised the cso even responded to the allegations but this

CACI International Inc provided staff to the US Army to
conduct IT and intelligence work in Iraq including interrogation services

is enough reason to protest their involvment

edwinkane

sdonn wrote: »

Sigh.

All these folks who think they can breach every law they want because it doesn't suit them are nothing more than anarchists.

Anarchy doesn not work in a civilised society. Society has so many people that it has to be a certain amount of compromise. Laws are made for the common good of everyone, and nobody should be allowed throw them to the wind as they see fit. That's why every time I see some hippy getting smacked by a Garda during a protest, I tend to think "too fúcking right".

You're an example of the whole indymedia-type gombeen who thinks theyre right, thinks the establishment and its laws are for everyone except you, and think you have the right to flout the law. You don't. If you don't agree with a law, by all means petition to have them changed. Join a political party. Run for the Dáil. That's how these things are done. Civil disobendience is not the way to protest and to be honset, those who do it look like a pile of total prats.

I'm afraid you gave yourself away by your remarks agreeing with someone getting "smacked" by a Garda during a protest.

If you are, as it appears, unable to distinguish between someone refusing to fill in a form and someone violently protesting, and then go on to call someone names who makes an argument, then it is impossible to discuss with you.

Why you are you on a discussion forum is uncertain, if your way to discuss is to call someone else names whose arguments you disagree with.

BrianD

sdonn wrote: »

YOU MUST COMPLETE THE CENSUS.

It is wholly too late for anyone to do anything about the company that designed the questionnaire. (The CSO website states that the forms were printed in Ireland, by the way).

It's not. Would cost the CSO a lot in tax payers money though and severe embarrassment for those who awarded the contract to this company.

I'm not happy to hear we've hired a company that was involved in this shíte either but at the end of the day, it was 8 years ago, it was an extremely small number of people, it was a different company, it was on the other side of the world and it was at the behest of the US government.

So on that basis just forget it? Brush it under the carpet. On that basis, the whole church sexual abuse issue could have dismissed that it all happened along time ago and affected relatively few people. That's unacceptable. Also, it wasn't a different company. CACI UK is a subsidary of the main company.

Anyone even considering not filling in the census should be ashamed of themselves - it's done once every five years and takes 30 minutes of your time to collate information that will be accessible for generations. Haven't you ever considered it handy that you can look up your ancestors from 1901, etc online?

To be honest i normally would and have done in the past. The fact is that we do the census too often and the data seems to be completely disregarded by public bodies. In any case, it's supposed to be a aid to government planning not a genealogy service.

People need to grow up and stop worrying so hugely over things which simply cannot and will not be changed. That petition is as useless as an Iraqi Vodka wholesaler.

Good people die while good people do nothing. There's nothing to say it can not be changed.

BrianD

sdonn wrote: »

Sigh.

All these folks who think they can breach every law they want because it doesn't suit them are nothing more than anarchists.

Anarchy doesn not work in a civilised society. Society has so many people that it has to be a certain amount of compromise. Laws are made for the common good of everyone, and nobody should be allowed throw them to the wind as they see fit. That's why every time I see some hippy getting smacked by a Garda during a protest, I tend to think "too fúcking right".

You're an example of the whole indymedia-type gombeen who thinks theyre right, thinks the establishment and its laws are for everyone except you, and think you have the right to flout the law. You don't. If you don't agree with a law, by all means petition to have them changed. Join a political party. Run for the Dáil. That's how these things are done. Civil disobendience is not the way to protest and to be honset, those who do it look like a pile of total prats.

Would you call what happened in Abu Ghraib the acceptable actions of people and a business working in a civilised society?

I have no problem with the law and don't deny it applies to me.. I have a problem with the contractor used by the CSO. We do have a right to civil disobedience and yes ut does change situations.

deirdremf

ELECTRIXON wrote: »

Oh dear...

They were awarded the contract in July 2009...
their press release confirming this is from January 2010..

Furthermore this is no mention of CACI on the CRO website except for two documents in 2006...

http://www.cso.ie/search/searchResults.htm?cx=007477919376516988184%3Akd8dk_fgnnq&cof=FORID%3A11&ie=UTF-8&q=CACI&sa=Search&siteurl=www.cso.ie%2F#256

needless to say.. the news pages have no mention of the contract in 2009, 2010 or 2011

http://www.cso.ie/census/census_latest_news.htm


So tell me this... how would your average Irish person know about this unless they (like you) are watching the etenders.gov.ie or would be checking out the CACI website...??

I mean come on.. are you being serious? When did these sites become news services?

I'm aware of CACI but I was not aware of this until a couple of days ago...

Tell me.. how would you suggest people protest? Or do you protest? Is protest in general covered by your cynicism?

Are you ok with this? Does it matter to you? When did you find out about this?

For the benefit of those who do not know how the tendering process works, it's like this (sometimes, not always):
X is in charge of getting a job done. He has to put it out to tender.
So he looks at the companies that do that sort of work. Maybe a family member, or someone who slips a backhander, works for company Y.
So X gets together with that someone from company Y, and they compare Y's product with the competitor's. They note two or three features of company Y's product that the other firms don't have, and then when they write the tender, these features now become "requirements" of the system they are going to buy. The features may or may not be relevant to the job in hand.
Company Y then tenders, is the only company who fulfils all the conditions of the tender, and so they get the contract.
Next time the contract comes up for renewal, the process is repeated, but everybody knows beforehand who will get the contract.

Don't get me wrong, this does not always happen, but probably happens more often than you would expect - nor is it only here in Ireland that it happens. It is usually very easy to write a tender so that only one specific company can meet the requirements.

mute101

Im not asking how to break the law here so hopefully i dont get banned for asking, but how would somebody lawfully/legally not cooperate with the census? Is there anything in the wording that could be interpreted in an alternative way?
Im just not happy with this whole situation and this company involved.
What are we all meant to do? Pretend we dont care that this goes on? Keep busy working and paying bills and forget all about it?

Any suggestions could be posted here... http://irishcensusscandal.org/

monument

mute101 wrote: »

Im not asking how to break the law here so hopefully i dont get banned for asking, but how would somebody lawfully/legally not cooperate with the census? Is there anything in the wording that could be interpreted in an alternative way?
Im just not happy with this whole situation and this company involved.
What are we all meant to do? Pretend we dont care that this goes on? Keep busy working and paying bills and forget all about it?

Any suggestions could be posted here...

No you may not legally avoid the census, other than leaving the country on the day of the census!

If you want to protest, find some other way of doing it. Protesting this way means you won't be counted.

Do you want to be counted?

BrianD wrote: »

To be honest i normally would and have done in the past. The fact is that we do the census too often and the data seems to be completely disregarded by public bodies. In any case, it's supposed to be a aid to government planning not a genealogy service.

It's disregarded by people as more than it's disregard by the Government.

GerardKeating

mute101 wrote: »

Im not asking how to break the law here so hopefully i dont get banned for asking, but how would somebody lawfully/legally not cooperate with the census? Is there anything in the wording that could be interpreted in an alternative way?
Im just not happy with this whole situation and this company involved.
What are we all meant to do? Pretend we dont care that this goes on? Keep busy working and paying bills and forget all about it?

Any suggestions could be posted here... http://irishcensusscandal.org/

If you are in a household on census night, you must (under law) partake in the census, apart from leaving the country, you might try sleeping rough for the night, or take a very very long drive in your car...

thebostoncrab

GerardKeating wrote: »

If you are in a household on census night, you must (under law) partake in the census, apart from leaving the country, you might try sleeping rough for the night, or take a very very long drive in your car...

Neither of which will work because you are still in the country, you just get a different form to fill out.

mute101

thebostoncrab wrote: »

Neither of which will work because you are still in the country, you just get a different form to fill out.

How about on a raft 20 ft out in the Atlantic ocean?

or

What if I was out of my house when the form arrived? And i didnt arrive back at my house until after the Census was over? I basically knew nothing about it?


www.irishcensusscandal.org

flogen

ELECTRIXON wrote: »

well a forum is a good place for a debate i would think...

It can be but in-person debates are often best for some topics. What I mean by not getting into this debate on a forum is that it will be be between people who can't make a difference even if they all wanted to.

The debate about the problems with modern news-media has to be had with editors and most importantly proprietors.

I don't rely massively on news services... I follow the way the news is reported though and will compare with other sources..

So you seek out information elsewhere and, I imagine, share it when you find anything interesting.

Like a lot of people online do, thankfully.

For whatever reason none of them found the census contract information - despite it being anything but hidden away - or else they found it and didn't think it important enough to spread.

TinyExplosions

I think the best idea is to the example in the UK, fill in the form so you comply with the law, and provide useful info, but make it as time consuming and expensive as possible for CACI to collate the info, lowering their profits (as I assume it's a fixed price bid?)

lendmeyourear

thebostoncrab wrote: »

Neither of which will work because you are still in the country, you just get a different form to fill out.

I was thinking that Belfast is my answer, have not been there for 20 years..
I was not here for the last census, went to Amerikey, did not have to fill out any form so this must be new that there is a different form to be filled.

I thought the CSO collated the information and that was tolerable keeping it in the family so to speak...now I do not want to hand my information to anyone outside of this country and in particular to the crowd that have secured the contract.....this feels wrong....

I am forwarding the protest vote to all in my contacts list

MinnyMinor

thebostoncrab wrote: »

Neither of which will work because you are still in the country, you just get a different form to fill out.

if you are not home but in the country you have to fill out the short part at the back isn't it?
also if you say you were not in country how would they know? they are hardly gpoing to be going around looking in windows. If ypu drove ove rthe border would you then have to fill in uk one? edit just saw the UK one is on 26 or 27? march. Though they were the same day in Uk? Weren't they before

MinnyMinor

ELECTRIXON wrote: »

i've been looking into this a lot over the past couple of weeks... my findings are here on this site http://multistory.itison.net please have a look and share.. also check out the video of an action that took place in Dublin on Saturday.

Jannene Roberts? who is she?

Arcus Arrow

For what it's worth I have in the past simply refused point blank to fill in the census. Nothing happened.

I don't know what would happen now but I'd hazard a guess that if you refused on the basis that the CACI was involved I don't thing they'd actually bother to bring you to court. The same government that guarantees the confidentiality of this census just published the 1901 and 1911 results online.

A defendant who claimed that the combination of all three factors led them to doubt confidentially I'd guess would be a walk out of the courtroom if it ever went that far.

Another ploy is to fill it out but make a hash of it. They won't come back for corrections. It's also possible to skew the data for those so inclined. Its possible people who have relatives/friends living permanently in other countries can enter their names as visitors and claim them to create a spin on particular questions, for example, religion.

The census though is used to gather valuable information and to some extent is used for planning and future strategy. When you have a bunch of idiots steering the ship that might not seem so important but it's still true.

That the information might be leaked out the the US government is not a wild theory (nor a proven fact in this case). Since 2007 the US has access to your travel information. You have a biometric passport. When I asked why I needed one I was told the US insists on a biometric passport. The fact that I have no intention of ever entering the US made no difference. They said I still had to have one.