In February 2013, a Memorandum of Understanding between the CSO and the EPA (PDF 609KB) was agreed. The Memorandum was signed by Mr. Pádraig Dalton, Director-General of the CSO, and Ms. Laura Burke, Director-General of the EPA.

The Memorandum formally enhances data cooperation between the CSO and the EPA. In addition to covering data transfer matters, it establishes a Liaison Group as a formal, high-level mechanism for consultation and communication between the two Offices. The Memorandum acknowledges that enhanced data cooperation between the CSO and the EPA will contribute towards: fulfilling statistical requirements of European legislation; reducing the administrative burden on business; and meeting national needs for statistics on environment-related topics.

The Memorandum reaffirms the CSO undertaking that all data received from the EPA are treated as strictly confidential and are used for statistical purposes only, in accordance with the Statistics Act, 1993 and Regulation (EC) No. 223/2009 on European statistics, and also in conformity with the Data Protection Act.