The Company Registration Office (CRO) currently has a vast amount of data which can be purchased for €60,000 if a researcher wanted to buy the entire dataset. If this dataset were available to the public it would be invaluable to researchers, however the cost is prohibitive.
Combined with other public data this would be useful in many fields from journalism to academia. It would also improve Ireland's reputation as a country committed to transparency with company records.
There is precedent for making this dataset available to the public. Companies House in the UK, has a downloadable zip file for their companies and people with a significant interest in those companies.
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