NOTEWORTHY, THE NEW investigative journalism site from TheJournal.ie, launched just over a month ago.

Our goal is to help people understand how Ireland works, and why it sometimes doesn’t work the way it should. We want to crowdfund and report on stories suggested by people around Ireland which deserve to be told and which would otherwise go unreported.

So how has it been going?

In that short space of time, we have been able to fund seven of the proposals that readers asked us to take a deeper look at.

We’ve also been able to publish six other stories, none of which would have been possible without your support of the project.

Our first story was this in-depth analysis of the mental health crisis in the Defence Forces and serious difficulties in hiring an in-house psychiatrist.

Next was this piece on the so-called “fast-track” home building scheme where fewer than 40% of projects granted special strategic development planning have actually commenced construction.

Our third project saw special projects and investigations editor Peter Bodkin investigating the problems with the provision of early intervention services to children.

His piece pinpointed the areas of the country suffering the worst delays, and found that in one case, a family in Dublin were told their son would have to wait 44 months for an appointment.

The next piece was an in-depth look at a worrying decline in vaccination rates for a dangerous type of meningitis, driven in part by “anti-vax” campaigns around the country.

We also brought you behind the scenes on discussions about the Tuam Mother and Baby Home between the government and the religious order that ran the institution.

And last week, we published our latest article on the ongoing saga of the redevelopment of an historic baths in Dublin.

Help Support Our Work 

You can support our work in either of two ways.

You can pick a particular project that you would like to see funded and make a contribution, either big or small, through our proposals page.

Among the projects that are currently open for funding are a deep dive into the Dáil and Seanad register of interests to look at which politicians own what.

In particular, we want to look at landlords and see if the number of multiple property owners in our parliament has increased over time.

You can help fund that proposal here.

We also have a plan to look a little more in-depth at the Irish health service, to see what other countries – who appear to spend a similar amount of their annual budget each year on healthcare – do differently, or better.

To find out how to support that project, you can visit its proposal page here.

There are proposals as well on the poorly regulated dermal filler craze, a dispute over traffic changes in Dublin, and the development of a tourist attraction in Co Mayo.

We also want to look at county councils around the country and find out what they’re doing to tackle anti-social behaviour in local authority estates.

And we want as well to investigate ‘grade inflation’ in the Irish third level system and find out whether it’s easier to score well in exams now than it was in the past. 

You can also support Noteworthy through our general fund, if you like the work that we have done so far and want to make a contribution.

You can follow us on Twitter too and help spread the word about us, or one of our proposals you feel strongly about.

Reader Ideas

We are always looking for reader ideas on stories you would like to see investigated.

So far, we have had ideas suggested from all across the country and have been busy creating public proposals from those.

However, we would like to see even more suggestions on the stories you believe are not being given attention or may have fallen through the cracks.

You can find out how to submit a story idea here.