In the recent past, I have made several postings referring to debates or parliamentary questions in the Dáil or Seanad. I was able to do do because of the service provided by the excellent KildareStreet.com website. The site allowed me to identify and set key words for topics that interested me (waterways, for instance); it then sent me alerts when any of those topics was mentioned. Simple, pain-free, efficient — and an excellent way of making the Oireachtas seem slightly more important. KildareStreet also provided a search function and a facility for reading and commenting on recent debates. I found the Oireachtas’s own debates website far less user-friendly.
The Oireachtas has now decided to change its system — and to make it worse. Not only is its own site inadequate (no alerts, no search, despite there being a search button) but it has ceased to supply the XML-formatted data that enabled KildareStreet.com to work and has thereby crippled what was a really useful service.
If there are any computer-literate politicians in Dáil or Seanad, I would be grateful if they would enable the KildateStreet.com service to be restored.
Irish waterways history 
lol you think they *want* the public to find out what they’re doing in there…?