Chai Brady
An online Government survey which includes questions about attendance at ‘religious ceremonies’ before and after the Covid-19 pandemic will produce “flawed” results, according to the Iona Institute.
Announced last week, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) are conducting a survey entitled ‘COVID-19 – Our Lives Five Years On’. It includes the question: “Thinking back to before Covid-19 restrictions were first introduced, did you regularly attend religious ceremonies (e.g. Mass, Sunday Service, Friday prayer), in person (e.g. at a Church, Mosque, Synagogue)?”
It also asks: “Do you now regularly attend religious ceremonies in person?”
The answers that can be given are ‘Yes’, ‘No’ and ‘Prefer not to say’.
A spokesperson for the Iona Institute said the survey’s results “will be very interesting and very revealing, but also flawed, unfortunately”.
“The survey is intended to gauge the impact of Covid on Irish life, five years after the outbreak of the pandemic. We don’t know exactly what impact the restrictions on Church attendance had during the pandemic, but a number of polls plus anecdotal evidence from priests, suggests it accelerated the previous decline in numbers quite sharply.”
The spokesperson added: “However, because it is an online survey, it might not produce a random sample, so how accurate will the result be? And also, it asks people whether they ‘regularly’ attend religious services. To some people this might mean weekly, and to other it might mean monthly. Therefore, the survey will have to be taken with a bit of a grain of salt.”