[7] The Core Implementation Team (CIT) is responsible for the day-to-day running of the Repository as well as strategy development, coordination and project delivery.

In addition, an International Advisory Group of eight experts ensures DRI maintains ties with other digital repositories across the globe.

DRI staff is composed of professionals from diverse backgrounds such as librarians, digital archivists, educators, and software engineers who support all aspects of governance, operations and management, and taskforces.

While some collections are aggregated from partners and members from heritage and research institutions across the country,[11] users are invited to become depositors to enrich DRI's portrait of Ireland.

[12] Collection highlights include Letters of 1916, the Stained Glass Studios Archive, and multi-media content from Raidió Teilifís Éireann.

[11] As an interactive repository, DRI is open to any kind of user with an interest in Irish cultural heritage regardless of age or level of education.

While the digital surrogates are stored with DRI, the original creator retain ownership, copyright, and associated intellectual property rights.

[16] Institutions and organizations holding humanities and/or social sciences data, including those operating on a non-funded, voluntary basis, may apply for Full or Associate Membership to leverage DRI's digital stewardship experience and capabilities.

The implemented open source systems include OpenNebula, Fedora Commons, Samvera (formerly known as Hydra), Apache Solr, Blacklight, Shibboleth, Ceph, and Ansible.

This new structure's framework was influenced by the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) reference model, while the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern implemented the data presentation and representation.

DRI utilizes technologies like Ceph and Bareos to provide federated storage and preservation while a separate process maintains integrity and fixity of archival data.