Just over a year ago I set out to investigate the causes of the Irish financial crisis using statistical data, exploratory data analysis and visualisation techniques. Quickly, I found myself running into all sorts of barriers - the data I needed was scattered and poorly described; just not in any fit state to be useful.

I spent just over a month building my own data service; providing statistical and governmental data from Ireland in a format that would be useful for my project and anybody else who was thinking of the same thing. I wrote some simple applications using open source software that people could download and modify - creating their own applications. I proved that the skills and effort involved in doing this should be well within the reach of a government department, state agency or company - the lack of care and attention was completely voluntary.

In the last year there has been some progress; some academic bodies in Ireland have started to highlight the importance of open data, some other voluntary projects have started, and there have been some small steps made by government agencies to make data available in better formats.

Outside of these modest steps, none of the problems I wrote a year ago have been solved. Ireland is just not anywhere on the map when it comes to offering its citizens current, accessible, coherent insight into the workings of government or the financial system.

My own little attempt to make progress is coming to an end because the effort involved in maintaining the data is pretty enormous, and other projects need to take priority for now. I learned a huge amount creating this project and I hope that truly open government in Ireland becomes a reality sooner rather than later.