www.focal.ie is the national database of Irish language terminology. In this paper, we examine: (i) the impact achieved by this resource in the five year period since work commenced; (ii) the possibilities which have arisen from one project over a short time span, to develop sub-projects and related initiatives; and (iii) the advantages and opportunities arising from the creation of one high-quality electronic language resource. The Irish case shows that the development of high-quality resources for a lesser-used language can have interesting and unexpected knock-on effects. We present eight stages and aspects of term planning: preparation/planning; research; standardisation; dissemination; implantation; evaluation; modernisation/maintenance; and training. Fiontar, in its work,has moved from its initial involvement in the dissemination of terminology, to take an active part in other aspects of term planning for Irish: research, standardisation, evaluation, modernisation and training. This has been achieved through editorial and technological development, in partnership with key stakeholders and always from a socioterminological point of view – that is, with an emphasis on terminology as an aspect of language planning and from the point of view of users in particular. Particular projects described include Focal as a term management system and as a user resource; tools for translators; user links to a corpus; the development of a new sports dictionary; and research into subject field headings. Two related projects are the LEX legal terms project for term extraction and standardisation, and the development of terminology for the European Union.