The CSO’s role is to gather, analyse, and publish independent statistical information about our society which is made freely available to everyone on our website. No individual, household, or enterprise can be identified from the data we publish because it’s not about you as an individual, but about us as a society.
Our statistics show us how we live and work in Ireland and they support understanding, effective debate, and decision-making across government, business, and society. Access to independently produced, verifiable information is a key part of democracy and living in an informed society. The CSO is trusted to produce independent insights on our society, economy, and environment, and we use a variety of methods to gather this data. Thousands of individuals, households, and enterprises take part in our surveys each year. We also use data collected by other Government departments, agencies, and public bodies, known as administrative data, as well as using price information from the websites of some service providers.
Households and sometimes named individuals are selected at random to take part in our surveys. We count on you to take part in our surveys, and you count on us to protect your confidentiality and to produce accurate evidence and insight that reflect the lives we lead.
The CSO surveys individuals, households, and enterprises throughout the year on topics such as health, employment, well-being, and household finances, so we can all live in an informed society.
The CSO’s role is to gather, analyse, and publish independent statistical information about our society. In addition to the Census, we also regularly undertake surveys of named individual and households.
Every year CSO interviewers conduct surveys in more than 70,000 households, all through the year, talking to people and gathering information from households throughout the country. These surveys give us a very accurate picture of the economic and social situation of the citizens of Ireland, in a way and with a level of detail that no one else can gain.
The information provided by people throughout Ireland helps us to measure employment and unemployment accurately; to provide quarterly labour force estimates; to enable us to produce a number of key national poverty indicators such as the ‘at risk of poverty rate’ and ‘rate of enforced deprivation’; to measure income and expenditure and to publish data on social topics. Such information is vital when making policy decisions that will affect all of us.
Households, and sometimes named individuals, are selected at random to participate in surveys. You can learn more about how people are selected for surveys in our FAQ.
Household surveys are not compulsory, but we would appeal to everyone who is contacted by the CSO to complete the survey as it ensures the survey is nationally representative and more reflective of the lives we live. No individual or household will ever be identified from our published data, any information shared with us is treated with the highest level of confidentiality and is protected by law.
It is compulsory for any enterprise contacted by the CSO to complete a survey when asked to do so. The CSO compiles a wide range of statistics to meet national, EU, and other international requirements. The information we collect is used to help enterprises and society make decisions based on accurate data such as import/export trends, average wages, or trends in employment. The published data has value for all businesses as it informs them of trends in their sector as well as for policymakers as it helps inform government decisions that impact this sector. As with all our surveys, any information provided to the CSO is strictly confidential, and no individual or enterprise is identifiable from the data we publish.
The CSO also uses data collected by other Government departments, agencies, and public bodies, known as administrative data, as well as using price information from the websites of some service providers.
To ensure we provide the most up-to-date and accurate insights, we also use data collected by Civil and Public Service bodies to produce official statistics. This data is known as administrative data. Administrative data sources include records of house sale prices filed to the Revenue Commissioners or births, deaths, and marriages as registered with the General Register Office. Other examples include the CSO working with the Higher Education Authority to produce data on graduate outcomes and remuneration.
Using administrative data reduces the time required for accurate data collection, and helps to improve quality, accuracy, relevance, and timeliness of results particularly in emerging situations. Data can be brought together or linked in a very safe and controlled way to enable analysis of the issue and help the CSO meet the growing demand for ‘real time’ data where it might be difficult or costly to obtain that information by survey.
Occasionally, other data sources such as those collected by private sector organisations can be used to produce official statistics under certain circumstances.
Web-scraping is the term used to describe the process where the prices of goods and services advertised on the websites of service providers are extracted for data purposes. For example, in terms of insurance costs, data is taken from insurers’ websites by the CSO to help calculate the Irish Consumer Prices Index (CPI) and the Harmonised Index for Consumer Prices (HICP), both of which are key measures of the cost of living. The web-scraping quotations data from insurers leads to higher quality information when it comes to calculating the insurance component of the CPI. Web-scraping has also been used by the CSO as part of a Frontier Series on Measuring Mortality Using Public Data Sources.
Data linkage or data matching is where two or more pieces of data are put together to provide greater insight. For example, the CSO’s Irish Population Estimates from Administrative Data Sources (IPEADS) estimates the population of Ireland in between Census years by applying a CSO-developed methodology for measuring activity using administrative datasets. The result is a series of population statistics that are entirely based on administrative records. Individual privacy is strongly preserved at every stage of producing IPEADS statistics.
All statistical projects that involve linkage between one data source which originates outside the CSO are subject to the CSO’s Data Protocol and require a Privacy Impact Assessment. This ensures that sufficient safeguards are in place so that individual information is adequately protected from disclosure at all stages of the matching process. Data matching is used for statistical purposes only. The CSO publishes a register of all data matching activity undertaken in compliance with this policy.
