www.focal.ie is the national database of Irish-language terminology which FIONTAR developed in collaboration with the Terminology Committee, Foras na Gaeilge. Phase I of the work consisted of digitising and integrating existing paper and electronic lists and was completed with funding from INTERREG III A (2004–7). FIONTAR, DCU continues to manage and develop this resource with funding from Foras na Gaeilge.

The database contains over 325,000 terms, searchable under both Irish and English versions. More than 880,000 unique visitors have used the website between 2006 and 2011. They have made 3.9 million visits and 25 million searches in that time. According to a 2010 user survey carried out by FIONTAR, the site is primarily used by translators and interpreters and by university students.

Several resources have been added under subsequent phases. A dictionary of 10,000 sports terms has been developed and added to focal.ie as well as tools for translation memories and other resources for translators including a link facility to The New Corpus for Ireland. Phase IV of the project began on 1 April 2011 with the following objectives:

To implement a new domain hierarchy, based on DANTERM;
To create definitions for some terms;
To compile a new dictionary of arts terms;
To complete the new dictionary of sports terms;
Publication of a CD-ROM version of the database;
To develop a version of site for mobile devices.

www.focal.ie won the award for ‘Best Irish-language Site’ at the Irish Web Awards 2008; and the European Language Label in 2007.