Slides from Karrie Kehoe's presentation at Data Journalism UK, Birmingham, December 2017

1. Data Journalism in
Ireland
Karrie Kehoe, RTÉ Investigations Unit

2. A little about me
Data Journalist
● Trained at CIJ bootcamps and NICAR conference
● Andrew Jennings FIFA investigator
● Thomson Reuters Foundation
● ICIJ
● The Times & Sunday Times Data Team
● Freelance Sunday Times Ireland
● RTÉ Investigations Unit

3. Data Journalism in Ireland
● TheStory.ie - Gavin Sheridan (2011)
● Irish Times Data Blog - (2015)
● RTÉ Investigations Unit’s Standards in Childcare (2013)
● IU Standards in Public Office (2015)
● Judging the judges (2016)
Northern Ireland: The Detail have been doing fantastic data
journalism since 2011

4. RTÉ Investigations unit
● The only dedicated investigative team in the Republic of
Ireland
● Paul Maguire is the Editor
● 5 year old team of 16 reporters, producers and
researchers within RTÉ the national broadcaster
● Mostly documentaries but we are expanding into digital
● Focus on data driven material

5. To date the unit has investigated:
● County councilors
● Childcare
● Treatment of vulnerable children and adults
● Housing conditions
● Failures in maternity care
● Charities
● Prostitution
● Universities
● Medical consultants
● Hospital waiting lists

6. Universities Unchallenged
Reporter & Producer: Conor Ryan & John Cunningham
Examined 150,000 financial transactions by Irish universities
We found that:
● UL set up companies to pay its employees over and above the salary cap
● NUIG awarded building contracts to a company that soon went into
recivership
● Universities had large private foundations they were not opening up to
public scrutiny
● UL €100k spent on pens and medallions for retiring staff
● Members of the governing authority were failing to declare interests
● UL misled the Public Accounts Committee

7. Public versus Private, the battle for care
Reporter & Producer: Oonagh Smyth & Janet Traynor
We investigated the working hours of hundreds of publicly paid medical
consultants. Irish consultants are permitted 80/20 public/private work
We found that:
● Considerable number of consultants in Ireland were not fulfilling their
public commitments
● One consultant was working 13 hours a week yet paid for 39 hours
● Over two years 43,500 public patients lost out to private work
● 30% of consultants on a specific contract type were working in private
facilities

8. Watch our documentaries or contact me
You can watch our documentaries at
https://www.rte.ie/player/ie/search/?q=RT%C3%89%20Investigate
s
Email me at karrie.anne.kehoe@gmail.com
Twitter: @karriekehoe