Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman for the opportunity to appear before the select committee as members consider the Revised Estimate for Vote 4.

As Ireland’s national statistical institute, the Central Statistics Office is an independent office under the Statistics Act 1993, and is responsible for the production, co-ordination and qualitative oversight of official statistics for Ireland. The CSO provides independent statistical information to support and promote understanding and debate across government, business and society. The CSO’s director general acts independently as per the 1993 Act and exercises sole responsibility in professional statistical matters. Under EU legislation, he also has responsibility for co-ordinating and overseeing the quality of all European official statistics in Ireland. The CSO provides high-quality statistics, independent insight and information for all in an accessible and user-friendly manner.

Official statistics are a public good and an essential input to creating an informed society for the people of Ireland. The digitalisation of State services and supports has created a rich data resource and the CSO is increasingly taking a leadership role to extract value from that data. Increasingly, the CSO is providing a suite of data and statistical services to the broader civil and public service.

This move towards a cross-organisational co-ordinator role across the entire civil and public service is mandated in both the European regulation on statistics and in the Statistics Act 1993. The development of this co-ordination role has been enabled by the increasing maturity of the Irish data ecosystem. This maturity has been driven by the ongoing focus on the development of administrative data across the system and, in particular, through the greater use of unique person identifiers, such as PPS numbers; place identifiers, like eircodes; and business identifiers. The greater use of this national data infrastructure, NDI, allows for the creation of multiple linked and integrated data that have been used in areas such as health, housing and the environment. This, in turn, has helped to inform Ireland’s response to events such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the Ukrainian humanitarian effort.

The increasing maturity of the data ecosystem allows the CSO to leverage the State’s administrative data stock to develop composite data sources tailored to a specific policy need. As Government Departments and offices work to extract the insights to help to inform their policy development and evaluation, the CSO is experiencing increasing demands for its expert data service and data supports. The CSO, in line with international norms, uses the term "data stewardship" to encompass all the diverse supports and services required in this co-ordination role. The Statistics Act 1993 underpins this co-ordination role and creates the legislative frameworks that provide for access to administrative data holdings in the civil and public service. The Act requires any public authority to consult and co-operate with the CSO for the purpose of assessing the potential of records for use in the production of official statistics. It also stipulates a consultation process where there is a proposal to introduce, revise or extend any system for the storage and retrieval of information or to undertake a statistical survey.

The CSO is part of the broader European and international statistical system. Its processes and methodologies are subject to a system of quality assurance by Eurostat to ensure that all statistics produced meet the required quality and methodological standards.

The CSO also adheres to the European statistics code of practice. Its compliance with the code of practice is periodically examined through a peer review process led by a team of experts from across the European statistical system. The peer review process builds on the European statistical system quality framework and provides the necessary assurances and transparency to users that official statistics are compiled in an objective and independent manner and in accordance with sound statistical principles and standards. The most recent European statistical peer review took place in February 2022 and found that the CSO is fully compliant with the European statistics code of practice.

There is a significant international dimension to the work of the CSO. As a member of the European statistical system, the CSO participates in a wide range of EU groups relating to the development of harmonised statistical methodology, the drafting of statistical legislation and the assessment of statistical standards and quality. The CSO currently holds the chairmanship of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe and takes a leading role in a high-level group on the modernisation of official statistics, which drives many of the advancements of statistical standards and quality.

Turning to CSO’s deliverables in 2023, the census of population remains a flagship product. It is the CSO’s largest data collection survey, reaching every household in the State. As members know, the census was deferred in 2021 due to Covid-19 and instead took place in April 2022. The CSO published the main findings of census 2022 in May 2023, followed by a series of thematic releases focusing on subjects such as housing, households, diversity and disability. Planning is well under way for census 2027 with a public consultation held last year on new questions or rewording of census 2022 questions for Ireland’s next census. The CSO is also working to develop a digital-first census to enable citizens to have the option to complete the 2027 census of population online. The CSO is also in the process of reviewing how census-type population figures are produced. The National Statistics Board recently held a seminar in Dublin Castle on the future of how censuses are conducted in Ireland with a broad audience of statistical users, policymakers, stakeholders and interested parties from across Irish society.

Beyond the census, the CSO continues to expand its scope and in 2023 published results from the national survey on the prevalence of sexual violence in Ireland. The safety of the person survey involved the collection of highly sensitive personal data from householders in a manner which is confidential, ethical and designed to support accurate and reliable survey results. The CSO published the first of these results in April 2023. The CSO also took over the growing up in Ireland survey from the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, in 2023.

Business and social data collection continues to be a key activity for the CSO. The survey on income and living conditions was published in February, providing a number of key national poverty indicators, such as the at-risk-of-poverty rate, the consistent poverty rate and rates of enforced deprivation. The survey will also ensure the consumer price index, CPI, continues to be based on up-to-date household expenditure patterns. As the official measure of inflation, the CPI has taken on an increased importance in the current inflationary cycle. The CSO released its updated basket of goods for the CPI on 15 February and it highlighted the relevance of the CPI in tracking the cost of living, as well as the social interest in how it tracks changes in taste and technology over time.

Throughout the course of the pandemic, the CSO provided statistical and analytical expertise, new data services and a safe and secure environment to support data analysis, epidemiological modelling and real-time evaluation and insight on trends and issues. In the same way, the CSO is central to the data response to the Ukrainian humanitarian efforts, producing weekly situation reports to the senior officials group and onward provision of data to the Cabinet subcommittee with a series of public releases on the theme of arrivals from Ukraine in Ireland. The CSO has also met with the key data departments and is working with them on the provision of further data to provide potential additional insight and has already produced regular reports on arrivals from Ukraine.

The CSO has also continued to develop new interactive graphics, infographics and new formats, such as bulletins and its frontier series. These outputs help to provide the additional insight needed by the public, businesses and policymakers across more general social, economic and environmental issues. The CSO published 477 outputs last year. Of these 477 releases, 38 were new. Many of the CSO’s new releases have been introduced under the banner of its new frontier series. These outputs use new methods that are under development and-or data sources that may be incomplete. Publishing outputs under the frontier series allows the CSO to provide useful new information to users and get informed feedback on these new methods and outputs, while at the same time making sure that the limitations are well explained and understood. Within this context, the CSO is now publishing flash or early estimates of some key economic indicators such as GDP, harmonised index of consumer prices and employment using a mixture of primary and secondary data sources. Many of the developments have been facilitated by the increased availability of real-time public sector data, including Revenue’s PAYE modernisation payroll data and data from online services.

The CSO continues to publish key economic indicators via the consumer price index and harmonised index of consumer prices; the monthly exports and imports of goods; the quarterly national accounts; government deficit and debt; the quarterly balance of payments; the labour force survey; the monthly unemployment and live register statistics; the survey on income and living conditions; births, deaths and population estimates; the wholesale price index; monthly industrial production and turnover; and the retail sales index, among others.

Being both trustworthy and confidential are core strategic values for the CSO with data security and confidentiality strongly embedded into the CSO culture. Significant attention and awareness is allocated to the protection of CSO data and information systems, and continual development of security capability is crucial.

The CSO’s work also supports the Civil Service renewal action plan’s themes of digital first and embedding innovation and evidence-informed policy and services. The CSO has the unique expertise to support and deliver on both these themes within the CSO itself and across the Civil Service. The CSO is also currently undergoing an organisational capabilities review, the recommendations of which will be used to guide further strategic change within the organisation.

Official statistics are an essential part in creating an informed society for the people of Ireland. The CSO’s data is indispensable in evidence-based policy decisions taken in Ireland. The fundamental statistical principles of independence, timeliness, accessibility, quality and confidentiality that lie at the heart of official statistics make statistical data more important than ever. In today’s post-truth environment, there is a greater onus and obligation than ever previously on national statistical institutes like the CSO to ensure that decision-makers have the evidence and insight they need to inform their decision-making and that citizens live in an informed society. Our post-truth societies need the highest quality official statistics and a strong narrative explaining their uniqueness and their value. Alternative facts can only be countered by evidence. Evidence is underpinned by hard data that is impartially compiled using transparent methodologies which can withstand the closest scrutiny.

Turning to the CSO’s budget, there is an allocation of €82.62 million for 2024. The gross allocation includes €3.1 million national recovery and resilience plan funding for the provision of an online census platform. The majority of the CSO’s budget goes on staff salaries with 76% of the gross budget being allocated to pay and the remaining 24% split across the non-pay subheads. The office is forecast to receive €2 million appropriations-in-aid in 2024, primarily relating to additional superannuation contribution. Funding for the CSO reflects the Government’s commitment to the office to meet its obligations under national and EU law, continue to develop the Irish statistical system and produce new outputs to meet domestic demand through the provision of trusted and robust official statistics.

In conclusion, the CSO is no longer an organisation that simply provides data and statistics. Rather, the CSO is an organisation that provides evidence and insight to policymakers and citizens alike, while at the same time co-ordinating the broader Irish data ecosystem through the provision of an increased suite of data and statistical services. The CSO operates in the public good and always operates with integrity, independence, objectivity and transparency. I welcome the opportunity to discuss the Estimate with Deputies today.