Submitted by johnh on April 22, 2009 - 16:54.

Since 20th January 2004, the Dáil has been in session for 493 days (including today).

Up until this morning TDs made 249,489 speeches, and asked 160,503 questions which received written responses.

On average, TDs are producing 507 speeches and 326 written answers per sitting day.

Sadly you won't have had access to information like this before, since the Houses of the Oireachtas publishes the Dáil record primarily on an illegible website ridden with elementary display errors.

What we needed, it was decided (by myself and independently also by some other people, though I didn't discover their existence until last month), was a port to Ireland of the spiffing UK site TheyWorkForYou.com.

Then we could (gasp!) search the parliamentary record. Get RSS feeds for TDs. Set up email or RSS alerts for people or search terms. Maybe even be able to read the bloody thing without wanting to kill oneself after about twenty seconds of stupidly-and-permanently-underlined horror.

MySociety helpfully publishes the source code which powers TheyWorkForYou, and I installed it back in October. Some readers may recall me showing that site, containing nothing but a list of TDs in the right place, back at Barcamp Cork 2.

The trick, however, is to get all the actual debates and questions into the site's database. You need to build a parser program to convert all that data from one format into another -- in Ireland's case, from the raw XML published by the Houses of the Oireachtas which is primarily intended as a print publishing format for the official record, but which also powers debates.oireachtas.ie.

The parser project languished for a good while until MySociety got another contact (this time from Gavin Sheridan) and forwarded him to me. Gavin, basically, annoyed me into making more progress.

I started in earnest again about six weeks ago and have worked on almost nothing since then.

The end result

As of this afternoon, then, we're pleased to announce that Ireland's local version of TheyWorkForYou is called KildareStreet.com, and that it's now available in public beta.

It still contains bugs, so be careful about jumping to early conclusions :)

At KildareStreet.com you can:

• Read a dramatically-more-legible version of the Dáil Record going back to January 2004,
• Search that record using a fabulous search engine which I didn't write - you can restrict searches to speeches or written questions, or by speaker, or by date or date range,
• Sign up for email alerts for when a search query you're interested changes, or whenever a TD of your choosing says something or asks a question which generated a written reply, and
• Subscribe to RSS feeds for individual TDs or for search queries.

The site will be updated the day after each sitting day shortly after the Oireachtas publishes that day's first report version in XML. RSS feeds and emails are generated shortly after that.

Coming soon

In the next few weeks you will also be able to inspect the past five and a half years of TD expenses, and the register of members' interests.

There's a programming API in the code base which we have not yet properly localised, and is therefore not yet available. I shall sort that out as quickly as possible.

Once we've done all of that, I'll get started on the Seanad.

Thanks due

None of this would be possible without the code for TheyWorkForYou having been released under a permissive license. This is the second non-UK installation of this code base (after Australia) and there's also a similar project in New Zealand. So thanks to MySociety, and to Matthew Somerville in particular for answering a large number of stupid questions while I was putting this together.

The Houses Commission employs people who could, when they got wind of it, have made this project more difficult or even impossible. They did not do so, and I and you owe them our thanks for that. Leo Bollins and Tom Malone have helpfully answered questions about their publishing formats and not been freaked out when I sent them bug reports about their source material.

Gavin Sheridan poked and chivvied this project into existing now instead of later, is sourcing ancillary data like member interests and expenses, and will be helping to keep the site ticking over as a moderator. For the first of these above all, this site etc without whom blah blah blah. Cheers, Gav :)

Justin Mason contributed actual code to start parsing written answers and has offered to assist in making the data import process follow at least some sensible test-driven methods which my shonky parser does not even begin to follow yet. He is the only actual code contributor to KildareStreet other than myself and code is, frankly, everything. The parser as it now is isn't using his stuff (yet) but we owe him a debt of gratitude also.

Simon McGarr is quietly providing assistance in the background, the fruits of which will become apparent in due course. Thanks to you.

Finally, and more than all the above, I live with a very tolerant and patient wife. Sabrina Dent, not entirely unknown in these parts, has been working for money and covering everything in our house in that manner while I've been doing all this for no cash. She thinks it's a worthwhile project and if she didn't, KildareStreet absolutely would not exist. Hire her!

Anyway. KildareStreet. It's now in testing. Have at it. Send me bug reports. Enjoy.

And above all? I think it's time we raised our game generally. Blogs are fine, sure, but actual apps that help people are required. This is my first contribution. How about you?

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