Guide for Publishers

Tá leagan Gaeilge den mhír seo ar fáil anseo.

Document ID

http://data.gov.ie/guide-for-publishers

License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Introduction
What data do we manage?
What data should we publish?
Is the data compliant with the Technical Framework?
How to publish data on data.gov.ie?
Add data manually via the data.gov.ie website
Add data programmatically using the API
Automate the publication of data using a harvester

Introduction

This guide is for existing and potential Open Data publishers, in particular Government Departments and public bodies who wish to publish Open Data on the data.gov.ie portal. In the following sections, we look at some of the stages of publishing Open Data: reviewing what data the organisation manages, identifying what data should be published as Open Data, ensuring the data is compliant with the recommendations in the Open Data Technical Framework, and publishing data as Open Data on data.gov.ie.

If you have any questions about publishing Open Data, please contact the Open Data Team in the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation at opendata@per.gov.ie .

What data do we manage?

When considering the publication of Open Data, it is important for a public body to develop a clear understanding of all the data it holds.

A data audit provides a mechanism to discover what datasets an organisation holds. This enables improved knowledge management, data sharing and evidence-based decision-making. It also helps identify data that is unnecessary and utilising resources, or data that could be improved.

The aim of a data audit is to identify:

the extent and range of datasets that exist within an organisation;
whether these datasets are maintained;
the ranking of datasets in terms of their importance to the delivery the organisation’s objectives;
the perceived gaps in useful data that might help the delivery of these objectives;
the potential for sharing datasets within the organisation and the wider public sector, and
the potential for publication and making available for re-use.

A simple data audit method involves:

Identifying the organisation’s activities and information systems that collect, create or manage data.
Reviewing each of the data sources defined in step 1 and identifying specific datasets. A dataset is a collection of data, published or curated by a single agent.
Following the identification of datasets in step 2, describing each dataset using the metadata schema recommended in the Open Data Technical Framework (Please note that this Framework has expired as of January 2026 and a new Framework is in development. The metadata schema information described is still relevant to publishers however.)

An Open Data Audit and Publication Planning Guide is available.

A Data Audit Tool to support public bodies who want to start publishing Open Data, but are unsure which datasets are suitable for publication can be accessed at http://audit.data.gov.ie/. A User Guide for the Data Audit Tool is available.

What data should we publish?

Once an organisation has an overview of the data it manages, the next consideration is what data should they publish as Open Data? According to the national Open Data Strategy 2023 - 2027 data should be available by 'design and default' and adhere to the FAIR principles:

Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable

A publisher should start with a couple of key datasets, especially any high-value datasets as defined by the EU Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/138. High-value datasets are datasets that are designated by the European Commission to have the potential to offer significant benefits when reused for society, the environment, and the economy. They fall into six thematic categories: geospatial, earth observation and environment, meteorological, statistics, companies and company ownership, and mobility.

We recommend conducting a data audit and putting in place a roadmap for publication of all suitable datasets.

It is important to note that some data will never be appropriate to publish as Open Data, for example, data publication that would lead to a violation of the fundamental right to privacy under data protection legislation, or data that may be classified for security reasons. The Central Statistics Office can also provide support on the statistical anonymisation of data for publication purposes. Further information and guidance on anonymisation is available on the website of the Data Protection Commission .

Is the data compliant with the Technical Framework?

The Open Data Technical Framework provides guidance on the practical aspects of publishing Open Data. This ensures that publication of datasets on data.gov.ie is done in a consistent, persistent and truly open way.

Please note that this Framework has expired as of January 2026 and is not currently available to public bodies to draw down from. A new Framework is in development.

The guidance below will still be relevant to Open Data publishers however. Reach out to opendata@per.gov.ie if you require any advice.

The Technical Framework comprised five key components:

Open Data Licence

Data and metadata published on data.gov.ie must be associated with the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) Licence, at a minimum.

Recommended Formats for Open Data

Data published on data.gov.ie must be machine-readable and in an open format (3-star Open Data), e.g. CSV, JSON or XML.

Data published on data.gov.ie must be compliant with DCAT-AP, the international Open Data metadata standard.

Recommended Standards for Open Data

Data published on data.gov.ie should use national and international data-standards where possible,

Unique Resource Identifiers

Data published on data.gov.ie should use Unique Resource Identifiers where possible. Datasets using address fields should comply with OGCIO Circular on the use of Eircodes.

How to publish data on data.gov.ie?

The data is now ready to be published as Open Data on data.gov.ie. Publication on an Open Data Portal opens the door to innovative data-reuse. Data.gov.ie does not host the actual datasets, but instead is a catalogue of metadata, with pointers to the data hosted elsewhere, for example on the website of a public organisation.

Data can be manually published on data.gov.ie via the 'Add Dataset' online form. Alternatively, data can be programmatically published on data.gov.ie via the API or a data harvester.

See our Guidance Note on Adding a New Dataset.

Add data manually via the data.gov.ie website

In order to add a dataset to data.gov.ie, the organisation requires a user account. An account can be created for Public Sector Bodies by contacting opendata@per.gov.ie

Once logged-in, the organisation can access the New Dataset page, as shown above. By stepping through the online form, the organisation is prompted to enter all the necessary metadata. The user-friendly interface makes it easy for non-technical users to publish datasets one at a time. However, using the web interface is not an efficient way to publish multiple data sets, or to periodically update existing datasets. For this, programmatic publication via the API should be used.

Add data programmatically using the API

Data.gov.ie is built using CKAN, which provides a powerful API that allows developers to add datasets programmatically. Using the API to create or update datasets is quicker than using the web interface when dealing with multiple datasets or dynamic datasets. More details on how to use the API to push data to the portal are available on the Developer Resources page.

Automate the publication of data using a harvester

Building a harvester that fetches data automatically into data.gov.ie makes sense if a lot of data is sourced from one place, for example, another data catalogue, or if data needs to be updated frequently, for example, daily. A harvester pulls the data from a predefined source periodically, adding and updating it automatically in data.gov.ie. It may utilise the portal's API or be built as a custom CKAN extension. Reach out to opendata@per.gov.ie for advice on setting up a harvester.

FURTHER GUIDANCE

More detailed Open Data Publishing Gudielines are also available or you can reach out to opendata@per.gov.ie