In 2023, eight in ten (79.8%) respondents reported they got information on news and current affairs from TV or radio whilst over seven in ten (71.2%) got this information from social media.
Nine in ten (90.1%) people said that the organisation or journalist who published the story was one of the top three factors that mattered the most when deciding if the news was trustworthy.
Just 2.4% of respondents reported that how many shares, comments, or likes on social media the news report received was a key factor when deciding if the news was trustworthy.
Almost half of respondents (48.2%) felt statistics provided by government institutions were often or always easy to find, and close to six in ten (57.6%) felt they were often or always easy to understand.
Ireland was a participant country in the 2023 round of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) ‘Trust Survey’. This was the second time the Trust Survey has been conducted, having first been undertaken in 2021.
Ireland was one of 30 countries that participated in the 2023 Trust Survey. The Trust Survey monitors people’s self-reported interpersonal trust and trust in different institutions and government across OECD countries, as well as gathering information on other topics including where respondents source information on politics and current affairs or their views on government statistics.
This is the third in a series of CSO releases from the 2023 Trust Survey. For more information on these previous releases see Trust Survey Releases.
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Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (16 May 2025) published results on the theme of news sources and views on national statistics from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Trust Survey 2023. This is the third in a series of CSO releases from the 2023 Trust Survey dataset.
Commenting on today’s release, Caragh Stapleton, Statistician in the Social & Demographic Statistics Directorate, said: “Ireland was one of 30 countries that participated in the OECD Trust Survey 2023. The Trust Survey captures people’s self-reported interpersonal trust, and trust in different institutions and levels of government across OECD countries. This was the second time the Trust Survey has been conducted, with the first taking place in 2021. As part of the 2023 Trust Survey, respondents were also asked questions about where they get information from on current affairs and politics, and their views on national statistics. More than 1,900 people took part in the survey in Ireland and the results from their answers are presented in this release.
Main Results
In 2023, eight in ten (79.8%) people reported they got information on news and current affairs from TV or radio on a typical day. This was followed by newspapers/magazines, both in print and online at 77.7%, and social media at 71.2%.
Nine in ten (90.1%) people reported that the organisation or journalist who published the story was one of the top three factors that mattered the most when deciding whether the news was trustworthy. This was followed by sources cited in the story at 75.1%.
Agreeing with the point of view of the story or how many likes, comments, or shares the story had on social media were the two least selected factors (6.9% and 2.4% respectively) when deciding whether the news was trustworthy.
Approximately two-fifths (38.6%) of respondents got 10% or less of their information on politics and current affairs from social media, whilst 4.5% of people got more than 80% of their information on politics and current affairs from social media.
Close to three-quarters (73.1%) of respondents felt that statistics provided by government institutions were trustworthy and almost half of respondents felt these statistics were easy to find (48.2%).”