A CSO Frontier Series Output- What is this?
The results of this release are based primarily on a data-linking exercise of two pseudonymised Central Statistics Office data sources:
With additional insights included by data-linking with the following additional pseudonymised data sources:
The linkage and analysis were undertaken by the CSO for statistical purposes in line with the Statistics Act, 1993 and the CSO Data Protocol [1] .
Before using personal administrative data for statistical purposes, the CSO removes all identifying personal information including the PPSN. The Personal Public Service Number (PPSN) is a unique number that enables individuals to access social welfare benefits, personal taxation and other public services in Ireland. The CSO removes the PPSN and creates a pseudonymised Protected Identifier Key (PIK). The PIK is a unique and non-identifiable number which is internal to the CSO. Using the PIK enables the CSO to link and analyse data for statistical purposes, while protecting the security and confidentiality of the individual data. All records in the matched datasets are pseudonymised and the results are in the form of statistical aggregates which do not identify any individuals.
All income data referenced in the publication spans the period from 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2019.
The geographic and demographic variables, such as place of work and disability status, were collected on Census reference day, 24th April 2016.
Where possible, data was for the year 2019 to avoid any outliers resulting from Covid-19 in 2020. The SEC data for leaving certificate used related to the year 2016 to allow for follow through to further education.
Census of Population Analysis (COPA)
The COPA is a pseudonymised copy of the Census of Population 2016 dataset held internally within the CSO for analysis purposes. It contains Census attribute information for individuals and households of which 95% of records have a PIK which allows them to be linked to pseudonymised administrative data sources to create new analysis.
Person Income Register (PIR)
The PIR is a pseudonymised income register held internally within the CSO. It contains information on income received by individuals relating to employment, self-employment and social transfers. It is derived from administrative holdings held by the Revenue Commissioners and Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection. Therefore, the PIR provides a near complete picture on individual level income, for a calendar year. All linkage is carried out by using a PIK assigned on each contributing data source. The PIK is then used to link the pseudonymised data sources together in order to create the PIR. The PIK protects’ a person’s identity but also enables linking across data sources and over time. The PIK enables high quality deterministic matching thus significantly reducing/eliminating linkage error.
State Examinations Commission (SEC)
The State Examinations Commission is responsible for the development, assessment, accreditation and certification of the second-level examinations of the Irish state: the Junior Certificate/Cycle and the Leaving Certificate. The State Examinations Commission is a non-departmental public body under the aegis of the Department of Education.
Student Universal Support Ireland (SUSI)
Student Universal Support Ireland contains funding information for all higher and further education grants. SUSI offers funding to eligible students in approved full-time, third-level education in Ireland and also, in some cases, funding for students studying outside the State. It offers support to all types of students, from school leavers to mature students returning to education.
An tSeirbhís Oideachais Leanúnaigh agus Scileanna (SOLAS)
SOLAS is Ireland's Further Education and Training authority, with responsibilities in the management, funding, promotion and monitoring of Further Education in Ireland. SOLAS manages a database for courses and participants known as the Programme and Learner Support System, or PLSS. The CSO receives the portion of the PLSS which relates to learners' enrolment and course completion. The PLSS contains course details such as course name, field of study, NFQ level and programme category. Learner details such as sex, date of birth and nationality are included, as are the start and end dates for each learner. The PLSS also includes a description of the outcome for each learner, specifying not only whether or not a learner successfully completed a course, but also their first destination after the course, or the reason for leaving the course prematurely.
Higher Education Authority (HEA) Student Records System
The HEA student records system data contains a record for each individual graduation and enrolment at Irish Higher Education Institutions. Details include the name of the course, the NFQ (National Framework Qualification) level, the degree class, and the field of study (broad, narrow and detailed fields as classified using the ISCED framework). Details on the graduates themselves include age, sex, nationality and the county in which they lived at the time of enrolment. The HEA also provide an enrolment data set that provides data on learners for each year that they continue their studies in a particular course. Higher Education covers NFQ levels from 6 to 10.
HSE Primary Care Reimbursement Service (PCRS)
PCRS is responsible for making payments to healthcare professionals – doctors, dentists, pharmacists and optometrists/ophthalmologists – for the free or reduced costs services they provide to the public across a range of community health schemes. The schemes form the infrastructure through which the HSE delivers a significant proportion of Primary Care to the public. PCRS also manages the National Medical Card Unit (NMCU) which was established in 2011 to process all Medical Card and GP Visit Card applications at a national level.
Housing Assistance Payment Scheme (HAP)
The data relates to details of all tenancies, tenants, properties and landlords that have been involved in the HAP scheme since its introduction in 2014. More information on the HAP scheme can be found at www.hap.ie. The dataset used in this publication contains tables from 2019, containing all relevant records since the inception of the scheme until this date. However, only HAP tenancies started up to and including 31st December 2019 are used in this analysis. All analysis within this publication which relates to the local authority of the HAP property, tenancy, household or tenant is from the location of the property as provided in the HAP dataset. The exception to this is for a small amount of historical tenancies previously identified as being in Cork County which have been re-assigned to Cork City based on 2019 boundary changes. Lower level geographies used in the publication are created from geocoding done within the CSO.
Summary of Social Housing Assessments Data (SSHA)
This data includes the SSHA (Summary of Social Housing Assessments – annual report) data that the Housing Agency received from LGMA in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. The dataset contains two datasets containing details of gross persons and net households detailing persons and households on the social housing waiting lists (net and gross lists) for local authorities within Ireland. The data received by the CSO does not include persons or households for Cork City, Wicklow, Galway County and Longford. Additional persons and households on the gross lists have not be provided for the four Dublin Local Authorities.
Net lists include households qualified for social housing support across the country at a certain count date but excludes those who have been provided with some social housing support (such as local authority rented accommodation, Voluntary/Co-operative housing, RAS or HAP) and are waiting for a transfer. Therefore, the data in this dataset is of those households that are considered to be the ‘Net Need’ of social housing support.
The 2019 count date was 24 June. For the previous years, the count dates were 11 June 2018, 28 June 2017, 21 September 2016.
For analysis within this publication looking at basis of need and classification of need from the housing list data this examines the first available basis and classification of need from the net and gross lists from 2016 to 2019 (i.e. capturing their reasons and requirements for being on the housing list). Analysis on tenure type identifies this from the most recent net list.
Disability
Data on disability was derived from answers to questions 16 and 17 of the Census questionnaire. Question 16 was a seven-part question that asked about the existence of the following long lasting conditions: (a) blindness or a serious vision impairment, (b) deafness or a severe hearing impairment, (c) a difficulty with basic physical activities such as walking, climbing stairs, reaching, lifting or carrying, (d) an intellectual disability (e) a difficulty with learning, remembering or concentrating, (f) a psychological or emotional condition and (g) a difficulty with pain, breathing or any other chronic illness or condition. If a person answered YES to any of the parts of Q16, they were then asked to answer Question 17. This question was a four-part question that asked whether an individual had a difficulty doing any of the following activities: (a) dressing, bathing or getting around inside the home (self-care disability); (b) going outside the home alone to shop or visit a doctor’s surgery (going outside the home disability); (c) working at a job or business or attending school or college (employment disability) and (d) participating in other activities, such as leisure or using transport. Individuals were classified as having a disability if they answered YES to any part of the above two questions, including, in particular, if they ticked YES to any of the parts of Q17 even though they may not have ticked YES to any of the parts of Q16. The formats of these questions were updated in 2011 in consultation with users and interested groups.
Working Age
The working age of 15 years up to 65 years old is used throughout this report. The reason for this being that the focus here is mainly on employment outcomes, DEASP disability, income and employment supports and education and training outcomes.
Employment
Persons with less than €500 annual gross pay from P35 employee income are not considered to be in PAYE employment nor are those with less than 2 weeks of PAYE employment
Persons with less than €500 IT form 11 self-employed trading income are not considered to be self-employed nor are those with less than 2 weeks of self-employed trading
Gross income
The annual gross income before deductions such as tax and social insurance which was measured in nominal terms and includes:
Gross earnings from employment
Gross earnings from self-employment
Gross income from occupational pensions
Social welfare income
Income from higher & further education grants
Excluded from the income measure are:
Investment income, including saving accounts, bonds, stocks and shares
Income from foreign rental property
Community Employment Programme income
Income outputs are produced at individual level. Income has been capped at €200,000 at individual level to remove the top 1% of income earners for confidentiality purposes.
Earned income
Annual gross earnings for 2019 from P35 employee income and IT form 11 self-employed trading income before deductions such as tax and PRSI from Revenue unadjusted for hours and/or weeks worked.
Social welfare
Total annual payments from the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection (unless otherwise stated), categorised into the following [2]:
Pensions including State Pension, Widow’s, Widower’s or Surviving Civil Partner’s Contributory Pension
Working Age Income Supports including Jobseeker’s Benefit, Jobseeker’s Allowance, One-Parent Family Payment, Widow’s, Widower’s or Surviving Civil Partner’s Non-Contributory Pension, Deserted Wife’s Allowance, Basic Supplementary Welfare Allowance, Farm Assist, Deserted Wife’s Benefit, Maternity Benefit, Paternity Benefit, Adoptive Benefit, Health and Safety Benefit, Redundancy Payments, Insolvency Payments
Working Age Employment Supports including Rural Social Scheme, Tús - Community Work Placement Initiative, Back to Work Enterprise Allowance, Short-Term Enterprise Allowance, Part-time Job Incentive Scheme, Working Family Payment, Back to Work Family Dividend, JobsPlus Incentive
Illness, Disability and Carers including Illness Benefit, Carer’s Allowance, Carer’s Support Grant, Carer’s Benefit, Domiciliary Care Allowance, Medical Care Scheme, Injury Benefit, Constant Attendance Allowance, Incapacity Supplement, Death Benefit
Children including Child Benefit, Working Family Payment, Guardian’s Payment (Contributory), Guardian’s Payment (Non-Contributory), Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance, Widowed or Surviving Civil Partner Grant, Family Income Supplement
Supplementary Payments including Electricity Allowance, Gas Allowance, Free Television Licence, Fuel Allowance
No income
Individuals who were identified as living in Ireland in COPA but could not be linked to administrative income data in the PIR in 2019.
Employment Status
There is a further break down of employment status in the Income and Employment chapter as follows:
NACE Rev. 2 Classification
The economic sector classification (NACE) is based on the ‘Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community, Rev. 2 (2008)’[3] which can be accessed on the Eurostat website. NACE codes were allocated accordingly as provided in P35 data.
Leaving Certificate Examinations
The SEC includes data on exam type, subjects, level of subject and accommodations for students siting the leaving certificate. This was linked to census for the disability indicator and to POD and PPOD for special school indicator. This publication looks at students who sat the leaving certificate in 2016.
SUSI Grants
There are two main categories of grant available from SUSI - the fee grant which covers university registration fees and is paid directly to the institute and the maintenance grant to cover living expenses which is paid to the student. The amount of maintenance grant received has four levels, depending on financial circumstances and distance to university.
ISCED: The fields of study referred to in this report are based on the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) broad fields[3].
NFQ level: the Irish National Framework of Qualifications (NFQ) is a 10-level, single national entity through which all learning achievements may be measured and related to each other. [5]
New Entrants: A new entrant is a student enrolled in year 1 of a full-time undergraduate course with a student code of 'New Entrant', who is entering higher education for the first time.
Graduates: Graduates are students from full or part-time courses with the enrolment status 'Graduate'
Medical card: With a medical card issued by the HSE, one can receive certain health services free of charge. To qualify for medical card, an individual’s weekly income must be below a certain figure. If an individual does not qualify for a medical card, they may qualify for a GP visit card.
GP visit card: With a GP visit card issued by the HSE, one can receive care from their GP free of charge. To qualify for medical card, an individual’s weekly income must be below a certain figure.
Cost of Pharmacy claims: Total expenditure includes ingredient costs, fees and vat on pharmacy claims for GMS patients only, and is exclusive of Stock costs, fees and vat.
Basis of Need: Local authority housing is allocated according to eligibility and need. The housing authority considers a number of criteria to assess if an applicant has a need for local authority housing. The primary reason a person is being included on the housing list is the 'Basis of Need' variable used in this report.
Classification of Need: The classification of need captures any specific requirements that were included in the application for local authority housing. This includes for example wheelchair accessibility for people with a disability or elderly people, or any other specific need.
[1] https://www.cso.ie/en/aboutus/lgdp/csodatapolicies/csodataprotocol/
[2] http://www.welfare.ie/en/Pages/sw19.aspx
[3] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/ramon/nomenclatures/index.cfm?TargetUrl=LST_NOM_DTL&StrNom=NACE_REV2
[4] https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cp11eoi/cp11eoi/bgn/
[5] https://www.qqi.ie/Articles/Pages/National-Framework-of-Qualifications-(NFQ).aspx
Learn about our data and confidentiality safeguards, and the steps we take to produce statistics that can be trusted by all.