A COMPANY WHICH has links to the interrogations at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison has been given a contract to work on this weekend’s census.

CACI UK was awarded the contract for “census printing and data capture services” in 2002 and has had that contract renewed for every census since.

In 2011, however, there was some negative feedback and a petition which demanded they lose the contract because its parent company, CACI International, “interrogated people detained without charge at Abu Ghraib”.

A spokesperson for the CSO confirmed to TheJournal.ie that CACI had won the bid – having been the only company to answer the tender.

However, the CSO says that none of the data collected will be seen by CACI representatives.

CACI UK will provide infrastructure around the census, but respondents’ data is 100% private and confidential. It is never given to any third parties.

CACI says that 60 of its staff worked as interrogators in the Iraqi prison – which was the centre of a torture scandal in 2003 – between August 2003 and August 2005.

However, their website points out that none of their staff were involved in the scandal.

No CACI employee or former employee has ever been indicted for any misconduct in connection with CACI’s work in Iraq. While three former employees have been cited in various reports in connection with disputed incidents in Iraq, no CACI employee took part or appears in any of the horrific photos released from Abu Ghraib.

The CSO says it maintains its commitment to working with ethical companies. They reiterated the stance taken in 2011 and pointed out CACI had not been convicted of any crimes.

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.”

Read: CSO calls criticism of Census 2011 contractor “irresponsible”