NATIONAL STATISTICS BOARD

AGENDA 

Thursday June 5^th, 2025

Room 301, Government Buildings 

 10.00 to 13.30 

National Statistics Board Minutes

The meeting took place in Room 301, Government Buildings, Dublin

Date:     Thursday, 5th June 2025, 10am to 1.30pm

Members present: Dr. Martina Lawless (Chairperson), Ms. Eithne Fitzgerald, Mr. Jim Scheer*,  Mr. John McGarry, Dr. Emma Cunningham, Mr. John Shaw and Ms. Jennifer Banim

Non-members in attendance from CSO: :  Ciaran Dooly¹², Sinead O’Connell¹ and Brian Cahill (Secretary)

Apologies: Dr. Clíona Saidléar

¹ Attended for items 4

² Attended for items 5

* Attended remotely

Item 1:  Minutes of NSB meeting April 3^rd, 2025 (NSB 2025-3-2)

The minutes of the previous meeting were agreed.

The Board discussed the independent review, announced by UK Statistics Authority and Cabinet Office, of the performance and culture of the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The Board considered the challenges faced by the ONS and how these apply to NSIs more broadly. The Board requested that CSO provide a paper summarising CSO organisational and governance structure, statistical and governance reviews, internal and external audit procedures.

Items 2 & 3: CSO Director General’s Report to NSB (NSB 2025-3-3)

The Director General’s Report was taken as read. The Board engaged in further discussion on several key areas highlighted in the report: 

The Board noted CSO’s:

• Valuable and productive collaboration with SEAI
• Launch of the Transport Dashboard
• Collaboration with DETE and IBEC
• Frontier publication on Domestic Industrial Production, which provided greater insight on the indigenous economy 

The Board heard that the CSO are chairing an OECD Task Force on Social Cohesion, which is an important aspect of society to measure within and between group social cohesion. 

The Board discussed the challenges in meeting both national and EU requirements in relation to Gender Based Violence. CSO are working closely with CUAN on the specification of the EU Gender Based Violence Survey to try meet both national and European needs in the one survey. Twenty five of the 27 EU member states are participating in the survey. 

The Board heard that the Trust Survey was recently published which included statistics on Trust in Official Statists. The Board noted the valuable feedback the survey results provide for official statistics in Ireland, for examples the results highlight the challenge survey respondents experienced accessing official statistics. 

The Board discussed the latest developments regarding inbound tourism statistics. It was noted that the CSO has been engaging well with stakeholders around the recent data release. This engagement has focused on clearly explaining the key concepts, definitions, and methodologies used.

There has been strong and constructive engagement with tourism stakeholders, and it was noted that the CSO has begun engagement with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (DETE), as that Department is taking on responsibility for this area. The importance of maintaining trust with stakeholders was strongly emphasised throughout the discussion.

The Board agreed that regular engagement and transparent communication with the sector are fundamental in order to mitigate any potential risks, particularly around misinterpretation or public concern. It is essential that the CSO are prepared to explain clearly what the figures represent, including their context and the methodology behind them. Being proactive in this regard is key to avoiding any surprises or misunderstandings. 

The Board considered the relevance of statistical outputs, publications, data tables and microdata files and how relevance can be measured. Metrics on data usage and web hits on publications and data tables will be provided to the Board by CSO. 

Department of Finance provide a policy valuation service to Oireachtas members using the SWITCH microsimulation model (developed by ESRI using CSO data). CSO are facilitating the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) to provide a similar service to Oireachtas members via an alternative microsimulation model, as this service is a part of their remit. CSO will engage with DoF, ESRI and PBO on this, as differing estimates from different models can be problematic. 

The Board acknowledged the differences between the CSO Statement of Strategy (SoS) and the NSB’s Strategic Priorities for Official Statistics. A noted challenge was the difference in timelines between the two strategies: the Civil Service Management Act mandates that all PSBs must develop a new SoS within six months of a new government's formation, while the NSB strategy operates on a five-year cycle. Despite these differences, the Board recognised the complementary nature of both strategies and noted that the CSO draws guidance from, and aligns with, the NSB strategy. The NSB strategy was also acknowledged for its broader view across the entire Irish Statistical System (ISS), whereas the CSO strategy is more focused on the organisation’s direct remit and its leadership role within the ISS.

The Board reflected on the success of the CSO workshops with the Department of Finance held in May 2025 and discussed the opportunities for the further rollout of similar sessions with other Departments and agencies. 

The Census Advisory Group (CAG) is scheduled to meet next week to finalise the Census 2027 proposal. Following this, the CSO will be in a position to bring the proposal for Census 2027 to Government. 

The Board noted the novel estimates produced from exiting data assets that were facilitated through an Innovation Labs project between CSO and SEAI. The potential to replicate the Innovation Lab model across other policy domains was discussed, highlighting the value of scalable innovation initiatives. 

With an upcoming meeting between CSO and NISRA, the Board identified a potential opportunity for the NSB to host a North–South event to encourage greater cross-jurisdictional collaboration. 

The Board heard that the CSO is currently developing a strategy for the use of AI in official statistics in Ireland, with a focus on low-risk AI applications to begin with. 

The Board considered the roll out of the Unique Business Identifier (UBI) to Departments and agencies. They heard that processes are in place to support the rollout of the UBI which have been designed for efficiency and ease of adoption. The CSO plans to work with Departments on Pathfinder projects to demonstrate the benefits of UBI and promote its broader use. 

The Board noted the progress being made on Revenue’s VAT One-stop-shop and consider the complexities of such a large project and emphasised the importance of the downstream use of the data asset. The Board were informed that there are an initial 12 use cases already identified by CSO for the data asset. 

CSO continues its involvement in developing the Public Service Data Strategy in collaboration with DPER and OGCIO. The OGCIO plays a key role in supporting departments with data use and infrastructure development. A coordinated approach with continue engagement is important with multiple organisations in the data leadership space. 

Item 4: NSP Input into the Development of CSO Statement of Strategy

CSO Statement of Strategy Development

Organisational Values – Presentation and Discussion with Sinead O’Connell and Ciaran Dooly
The Board had a valuable discussion on CSO values. Key points included:

• Values should be developed with strong staff input (“bottom-up”).
• Consideration of the impact of blended working arrangements.
• Organisational culture, particularly within the field force.
• Mechanisms to embed and transmit values in a hybrid work environment.
• Identifying behaviours that reflect embedded values, as behaviours are more easily measured.
• Consider including outcomes or KPIs in the SoS to enable clearer measurement of success.
• Consider how to incorporate ‘emerging issues’ or ‘opportunities’ in the SoS (e.g. growth in health data space)
• What are the foundations of Trust? The foundations should be the focus with Trust being the downstream outcome.

Item 5:  : CSO & EU plans regarding the implementation of the revised Regulation (EC) No 223-2009 on European statistics

Regulation 223/2009 – Access to Privately Held Data

Presentation and Discussion with Ciaran Dooly

The Board had an informative discussion on the implications of the EU regulation and the plans to utilise the regulation. CSO expect to first progress the access and use of privately held data following areas:

• Tourism statistics
• Price statistics
• Energy (including smart meters)
• Labour market (skills and vacancies)
• Real estate

The Board heard that the implementation phase from a Eurostat perspective has 3 Principles:

• Build on experience
• Sustainable (long term approach will be taken to ensure its sustainability into the future)
• Use of private data will be explored for all statistical domains.

The relationship between the amend regulation and Irish legislation will be assessed.

Maintaining public trust on the journey to accessing and using private data for statistical purposes is key and of the utmost importance. A cautious and correct approach must be taken.

There may be overlap or between amended Regulation 223 and the Digital Services Act which facilitates researcher access to private data to assess systemic risk to the public.

A national approach and European approach to access private data will be taken depending on the relevance and scale of the data provider. While the regulation provides for free access to data, payments can be made to the provider if they process the data to make it consumable and standarised for greater utility for statistical purposes.

Item 6: AOB

The dates of NSB for the remainder of 2025 were reviewed. The Board consideration the possibility of a visit to CSO Cork or another CSO office within the year.

Item 7: Private Business

The Board members had a private discussion