Privacy notice
The short version: there are no cookies, no advertising networks and no third-party tracking on this site, your details are never shared with anyone, and you can use the whole thing without telling me who you are.
Last updated 6 October 2026
Who is responsible
Daniel O'Hara, who runs irishgrantsandsupports.ie. You can reach me at hello@irishgrantsandsupports.ie about anything on this page.
What is kept when you ask a question
When you use the assistant, the following is saved so I can see what people are looking for and make the answers better:
- The question you typed and the answer you were given. Long runs of digits that look like a phone number are automatically removed before it is saved.
- Which supports were shown to you, and whether anything matched at all.
- A rough idea of where you are, worked out from your internet connection: the country and the county or region. Your town is not stored. If you mention a county yourself, that is used instead.
- A topic label, such as energy or carers, and a rough read of the tone of the message.
- Whether you arrived from a link, a search or social media.
- A random reference number for that one question, so that if you then click through to an official page I can see that the answer was useful. It identifies the question, not you.
None of this is linked to your name or to any account, because there is no account. Your IP address is used for a few seconds to stop the site being flooded with automated requests and is never saved.
One thing worth knowing. Because the question is saved in your own words, anything you type is saved. Please do not include your name, your address, your PPS number or anyone else's details. You never need to give any of those to get an answer.
What is kept if you sign up for updates
Your email address, and which page you signed up from. It is used for one thing: telling you when grants and supports change. There is an unsubscribe link on every message and you can also just email me. Your address is never shared with, sold to or rented to anyone.
What is kept if you leave feedback
If you tell me whether an answer helped, that is recorded. If you leave a comment or a testimonial you can add your first name and county and say whether you are happy for it to be published. Nothing is ever published unless you have said yes.
Cookies, tracking and how usage is measured
This site does not use cookies, and it does not follow you around the internet.
There are no advertising networks and no third-party tracking of any kind: no Google Analytics, no Facebook pixel, nothing that reports back to another company. The site is set up so that outside scripts cannot run on it at all. A local business can pay for a clearly labelled listing (they are named on the charter page), but those listings are placed by me, not by an advertising network, and they do not track you.
I do keep my own count of how the site is being used, on my own systems, and that is exactly the information described further up this page: what was asked, what was shown, whether anyone clicked through, and roughly what part of the country it came from. It tells me that six hundred people asked about carers this week. It does not tell me who any of them are.
On some guide pages I also count how far down the page people read and roughly how long the page was on screen. That is recorded as one anonymous note per visit, with no cookie and nothing that identifies you. It tells me which parts of a guide people actually reach, so I can make the pages clearer.
I also keep a separate set of anonymous counts by county, so I can see where help is wanted. Each one is a tick against a fixed list: that someone searched, which topic and which support came out on top, whether the search was answered and the county if you have chosen one on the site. That is all. There is no question text, no IP address, no name and nothing finer than a county. If a search gets a safeguarding reply, only the county is counted and nothing about the topic. The county is never worked out from your internet connection for these counts.
If a local business has a paid listing on the site, I count, anonymously, how many times it could have appeared, was shown and was on screen, and how many times its WhatsApp, Call or Website button was pressed, with the county you chose and whether it was on a search answer or a guide page. A press is counted by my own server on the way to the business, once per visit for each button. Nothing about you is passed to the business. They receive totals only, and any number under five is shown to them as "fewer than five". If you go on to their website, the link tells their analytics that you came from this site and nothing else. If you message or ring them, that conversation is between you and them.
A few small notes are stored by your own browser, on your own device, and never sent to me: one remembers that you have already signed up so you are not asked again, one remembers that you have been asked during this visit, and two remember which filter you picked in the browse list during this visit. Two more remember, for this visit only, how many searches you have made and whether you have opened a guide since, so that each is counted once per visit. If you choose a county on the site, that choice is also remembered in the tab for this visit and sent with the counts above. The filter notes and the visit notes clear when you close the tab. You can clear all of them by clearing your browser data.
Who else sees any of it
The site is run by one person using a small number of services. They only ever process this information on my instructions, and none of them is allowed to use it for their own purposes.
| Service | What it does | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic | Reads your question and works out which supports fit. It receives the words you type. | United States |
| Supabase | Stores the questions, the answers and the anonymous counts by county. | Ireland, EU region |
| Netlify | Hosts the site and receives the sign-up and feedback forms. | United States |
| Zoho Mail | Runs the hello@ email address. | EU |
| Google Fonts | Delivers the typefaces the site is set in. | United States |
Where a service is based outside the European Economic Area, the transfer is covered by the standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission.
Nobody else gets any of it. No advertiser, no partner, no sponsor, no council, no company. It is not sold, rented or shared, and it never will be.
Why I am allowed to keep it
- Questions and answers: my legitimate interest in running the service and making the answers accurate. The information is kept in a form that does not identify you.
- Counts by county: the same legitimate interest. They hold no question text and nothing that identifies you, so there is nothing to link back to a person.
- Your email address: your consent, given when you signed up. You can withdraw it at any time.
- A published testimonial: your consent, given by ticking the box.
How long it is kept
Questions and answers are kept while the site is running, because they are what make the answers better over time. The anonymous counts by county are kept for as long as they are useful. Your email address is kept until you unsubscribe or ask me to remove it, and then it is deleted.
Your rights
You can ask to see what is held about you, to have it corrected, to have it deleted, to object to it being kept, or to withdraw consent. Email hello@irishgrantsandsupports.ie and I will deal with it.
To be straight with you about one limit: questions are not stored against a name or an account, so if you ask me to delete a question you asked, I will usually have no way of telling which one was yours. If you can tell me roughly when you asked and what it was about, I will do my best to find it.
If you are not happy with how I have handled something, you can complain to the Data Protection Commission at dataprotection.ie.
Children
This site is meant for adults looking for supports, whether for themselves or for someone else. It is not aimed at children and does not knowingly collect anything about them.
Changes
If this notice changes in a way that matters, the date below changes and the change is described on the page.
See also the independence charter, which sets out the rules this site holds itself to.