There will be a change to the way people will be asked about their religion in the next census.

The previous census, in 2016, asked: “What is your religion?” followed by a choice of faiths, with no religion as the final option.

The new wording is: “What is your religion, if any?” The first option is “no religion” followed by a list of faiths.

While no Church had called for a change, Atheist Ireland had previously called for the question to ask “whether people practise a religion” to avoid prejudicing the answer with “preprinted options”.

Michael Nugent, chairperson of Atheist Ireland, said: “It’s a step in the right direction, a slight improvement, but they’ve changed it as minimalistically as they could. Before it was a leading question, the assumption was you had a religion.”