Dr. Claire Keane:

The Department of Education holds information on children and how they perform in school tests. The Department of Health might hold information on how often people go into hospital or how often they use a medical card, for example. I know there are major data protection issues but in other countries there is often something like the CSO, a central statistical agency tasked with bringing information together. The CSO already does this quite a lot for survey data, including the survey of income living conditions, SILC, that Dr. Doorley and I would use a lot. That brings in administrative information on incomes and such matters but it could certainly be improved.

There is a financial side to this and if the CSO did the work, it would have to be provided with the resources to do it. As researchers, we often contact Departments and we may or may not get information, so that might bring clarity in that respect. There can also be a cost saving aspect. If we get a system up and running where data are recorded and centralised, we may not have to rely so much on surveys, which can be costly to carry out. If we centralise the process and have joined-up thinking between Departments, it can help. Somebody must take on the role of drawing all of this together. The CSO may not thank me for suggesting it but it is a natural candidate to bring together all this information.

As a researcher, of course I will say that all this must be made available to researchers so we can access the data. I know that I have tried to get data from a Department but it could not be provided to me because of data protection rules, etc. It would be very good to ensure researchers have access to this as well.