Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 17 June 2026
59. Deputy Malcolm Byrne asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation to outline Ireland's position as a global leader in the stewardship of data; and the way in which Ireland promotes that position internationally. [46394/26]
View answerI would like to thank the Deputy for the question. Ireland’s recent international rankings in digital government and open data reflect sustained investment and reform to build a modern, digitally-enabled and data-driven public service. This is underpinned by whole-of-Government coordination and a focus on delivering better outcomes for our people as outlined in the Better Public Services transformation strategy led by my Department. This success also recognises the partnership with the Central Statistics Office and their particular and significant role in the stewardship of public service held data.
The OECD’s 2025 Digital Government Index ranked Ireland 7th out of 36 countries. The Index assesses the policy and governance foundations that enable coherent, human-centred digital transformation across six dimensions: Digital by design, Data-driven public sector, Government as a platform, Open by default, User-driven and Proactiveness.
These results reflect long-term investment in shared digital capability in the public service, led by my Department, including common building blocks and stronger data governance and interoperability—foundations that will support consistent service standards, reduce duplication, and enable more seamless services across organisations.
Ireland also ranked 11th in the OECD OURdata Index, which examines open government data policy across data availability, data accessibility and government support for data reuse.
In the EU’s 2025 Open Data Maturity assessment, Ireland ranked 5th overall (4th among EU Member States) with a score of 96%. The EU assessment measures performance across four dimensions - covering the strength of national open data frameworks and governance, the capability and sustainability of our national open data portal, metadata/standards and data quality, and the measurement and demonstration of reuse and impact.
The ranking acknowledges Ireland’s practical supports that help public bodies publish and improve datasets, the use of shared national platforms and catalogues and work to reduce barriers for local organisations to publish high-quality open data.
Taken together, these international rankings reflect the progress made by Government in digital Government and open data policy and infrastructure and position’s Ireland strongly to leverage government data for transparency, innovation and supporting emerging technologies such as AI for public good, and to grow the economy. Ireland actively participates with colleagues in the OECD and EU to promote our approaches and how these enable Ireland’s high ranking in such assessments.
