A blog about things that interest me, politics, news, media, architecture, development, environment, local history, secularism, web, dublin ireland, tara

Contact me at expectationlost@gmail.com

Wednesday 27 May 2015

Following the Irish Parliament

Post about following the Dail, I'll decided to publish this straight away then wait till I'vewriten everything I can think off so I'll start with the most useful tool apart from the Oireachtas website itself.

Changes to oireachtas website

Changes to oireachtas website Politics.ie thread I started.

Oireachtas App

new app for the oireachtas

has members database, constituency finder, video/audio streams, press releases and schedule

Press Releases, Houses of the Oireachtas

Oireachtas App Web Version

Oieachtas App for Android

Oieachtas App for IOS/Apple

kildarestreet.com

Kildarestreet.com by John Handelaar is based on theyworkforyou.com framework by My Society, with custom parsingof Dail record.

KildareStreet.com is a searchable archive of everything that's been said in the Dáil and all written parliamentary questions since January 2004, everything in the Seanad since September 2002, and now also all Committee meetings since September 2012.

Its the best open gov data and is extremely useful for citizens, TDs and campaigners and journalists.

You can see a list of TDs and follow each from your constituency

Historical list of all TDs to get id number

Who is my TD
Use Who is My TD by Colm Doyle to search by address of you are not sure.


you use search Subscribe to an email alert

useful general search terms

"tabular format"
i propose to take questions nos "inclusive together"
"and if he will make a statement on the matter"
by his Department in 2012 and to date in 2013
"To ask the Minister for"
(details supplied)
"To ask the Minister for" party:Lab
in the table attached
"Additional information not given on the floor of the House"

dail dates

20080101..20080131

details supplied by use by TD

Dail improvements TD

what to follow and whats tricky... bills

Votes

the Oireachtas has recently put up the Dail Votes Data and charts themselves votes but i don't know how to make sense or use of it in that format
http://oireachtasdebates.oireachtas.ie/debates%20authoring/debateswebpack.nsf/%28$vVotesByDateSortedDail%29?openview&count=-1&collapseview

the Oireachtas has recently put up the Dail Votes Data and charts themselves votes http://oireachtasdebates.oireachtas.ie/debates%20authoring/debateswebpack.nsf/%28$vVotesByDateSortedDail%29?openview&count=-1&collapseview

http://oireachtasdebates.oireachtas.ie/Debates%20Authoring/DebatesWebPack.nsf/%28$vAllByUNID%29/80257A38004E2D6380257C7100589545?opendocument

a Group called Dail Watch tried to keep a running check on votes but weren't able to keep going

it always a question of whats the worth of putting huge effort into following votes that are almost always cast along party/ government vs opposition lines.

Oireachtas Calendar

The Oireachtas finally created a digital calendar but it open outputs .ics as single events so I scrapped it into full updating calendar you can subscribe to. see more at oireachtas calendar

@thecatchment I made a twitter outputs the Oireachtas calendar with a link to the video stream and many other documents from official sources such the Oireachtas and other government departments.

Oireachtas Documents OPAC
the Oireachtas OPAC was opened up the public in 2013 and links to document laid before the houses of the Oireachtas, government/agency reports, committee reports, EU regulations etc.

Unfortunately you cannot subscribe in any to updating list the documents but they have
weekly summary of reports via the Oireachtas Research Services

State Boards
The government created a new stateboards membership website

although it doesn't output changes so I've scrapped it and made a number of files to keep an eye on that.

http://www.thecatchment.org/stateboards/stateboardrss.xml Membership change rss

http://www.thecatchment.org/stateboards/boardsdata.csv Full boards Data update each day.

http://www.thecatchment.org/stateboards/boardsdatanamedate2015-05-27.csv Boards data by data yyyy-mm-dd

http://www.thecatchment.org/stateboards/sbmduprss.xml How many Boards each Person is on rss

http://www.thecatchment.org/stateboards/sbmdup.csv How many Boards each Person is on csv

http://www.thecatchment.org/stateboards/boardssetdiff.csv CSV of who members who changed

http://www.thecatchment.org/stateboards/boardschangelist3.csv CSV of who boards who changed

http://www.thecatchment.org/stateboards/stateboardmembernum.xml Number of members on each Board updated daily rss

http://www.thecatchment.org/stateboards/boardsmembernum.csv Number of members on each Board updated daily csv

http://www.thecatchment.org/stateboards/deptboardnumrss.xml Number of boards in each Department updated daily rss

http://www.thecatchment.org/stateboards/deptboardnum.csv Number of boards in each Department updated daily csv

http://www.thecatchment.org/stateboards/boardsdatanamedate.csv Boards data, just name and board and dept link update each day.


Re-released Records

A Policy on the re-release of records previously put into the public domain in compliance with Freedom of Information (FOI)

The Houses of the Oireachtas Communications Unit has a policy of making records previously released in compliance with FOI legislation available to members of the public/media etc. This is done on a case by case basis. It is done with conscious avoidance of releasing records that have an either personal or commercial sensitivity. It does so on the basis that such records have already been placed in the public domain, that these records are of public interest and that their release has already been deemed to be in the public interest
Re-released records, Houses of the Oireachtas