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Sources and methods

Every number on plaindata.ie comes from an official Irish public source. We download it automatically, check it, and present it plainly. We never edit the underlying figures.

Hospital waiting lists

Source: National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) open data, published monthly under CC BY 4.0 and listed on data.gov.ie. It covers outpatient (first consultant appointment), inpatient and day case, and GI endoscopy lists, by hospital and specialty, from 2014.

  • Each figure is a snapshot of people waiting at month end. The NTPF does not publish how many people were treated.
  • “Over 12 months” is the share of the list in time bands starting at 12 months or more.
  • Year-on-year change compares the same month a year earlier.
  • The NTPF masks cells under 5 and groups specialties with fewer than 20 people as “small volume”, so totals can differ slightly from NTPF headline figures.
  • Children's Health Ireland is reported as one hospital from 2019.

NCT Reliability Index

Source: Road Safety Authority / NCTS published make, model and year-of-registration results, plus test-centre pass rates. We use first-time full tests.

A car's chance of passing depends mainly on its age. Four-year-old cars pass more than 80% of the time; cars over ten pass about 40%. So raw pass rates mostly reward models that are, on average, newer.

The Reliability Index compares each model with cars of the same year of registration, tested in the same year:

  • For every year of registration, the expected passes are the model's tests × the national pass rate for that year of registration.
  • Index = actual passes ÷ expected passes × 100, summed over all years with at least 30 tests.
  • Models need at least 300 tests in the year to be ranked.

The index still reflects how cars are driven and maintained, not just how they are built. Mileage is not published by model, so high-mileage fleets (taxis, diesel commuter cars) will score lower.

Companies

Sources: Companies Registration Office open data (company records, updated daily; financial statements filing index), both CC BY 4.0, plus GLEIF Legal Entity Identifier and parent relationship data (CC0), matched exactly on the CRO number.

  • Sector comes from the company's declared NACE activity code, and county from its registered office address.
  • Filing delay = days from financial year end to the date the CRO received the accounts. Over 330 days is beyond the usual deadline: accounts made up to within 9 months of the annual return date, then filed within 56 days.
  • “Annual return overdue” = an active company more than 56 days past its next annual return date.
  • Parent groups come only from companies that hold an LEI (mostly larger companies and financial entities) and reflect accounting consolidation, not legal ownership.
  • Employment permits (Department of Enterprise, permits issued to companies, by month) and public contract awards (OGP eTenders open data) don't carry a CRO number. They are linked by exact match on the company name after removing legal suffixes (Ltd, DAC, UC…), punctuation and a leading “The”. A link is made only when exactly one company has that name; active companies win over closed ones with the same name. Unmatched records still count in the leaderboards. Multi-supplier awards are split evenly between the suppliers named.
  • Enforcement record (Revenue tax defaulters, FSAI orders, HSA prosecutions, Central Bank actions) uses stricter rules. The published name must carry a company suffix, so individuals are never linked or shown. It must match exactly one company. Where the notice gives an address, it must be in the same county as the registered office. Central Bank actions are linked only to financial-sector companies or companies with an LEI. FSAI orders are shown only while the FSAI lists them.
  • Directors, secretaries and shareholders are deliberately not shown. Closed companies' pages are not indexed by search engines.

Charities

Source: Charities Regulator public register and annual reports. Figures are as the charity reported them and are not audited by the Regulator.

  • “From the State” = income from government or local authorities plus other public bodies.
  • Reserves = net assets ÷ monthly spending.
  • Peer comparisons rank a charity against others with the same purpose and income band, or the same income band where there are fewer than 15 peers. At least 5 peers are needed.
  • Charities with income of €25,000 or more get a profile page. Trustee names are not published here.

Nursing homes

Source: HIQA inspection reports for designated centres for older people. HIQA publishes one PDF per inspection, and we read each one automatically.

  • Each regulation inspected is judged compliant, substantially compliant or not compliant.
  • Score = (compliant + ½ × substantially compliant) ÷ regulations inspected × 100, using the latest inspection.
  • HIQA picks which regulations to inspect, so a score based on a short, targeted inspection can differ from one based on a full inspection. Always read the full report.

Crèches and childcare

Source: Tusla Register of Early Years Services, published monthly as one PDF per county.

  • Places = the maximum number of children a service can accommodate under its registration. Where two capacities are given (e.g. sessional and full day), we use the larger.
  • Baby places = services whose age profile starts under one year.
  • “New” = registered in the last 12 months. Bulk 1 January re-registrations are excluded.
  • Childminders are counted but never listed, because their address is usually a home. Provider names, persons in charge and phone numbers are not published here.

Licences

NTPF data: CC BY 4.0. RSA/NCTS, Charities Regulator, HIQA and Tusla data: re-used as published public sector information. Re-use of Irish public sector information is under the PSI Directive and S.I. 376/2021. plaindata.ie is independent and not affiliated with any of these bodies.