Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 6 to 8, inclusive, together.

In 1996, at the request of the then Attorney General, his office took on the task of preparing an electronic Irish Statute Book, eISB. The first release in CD-ROM format was in December 1998 in respect of the Acts for 1922 to 1997. Since then, the office arranged for the publication of the eISB on the Internet in September 2000, updating of the Internet site on three occasions and the publication of an updated CD-ROM version on two further occasions. The more recent updating included Acts, statutory instruments and chronological tables.

In August 2006, the office published the latest update to the Internet version comprising the Acts to the end of 2005, statutory instruments to No. 350 of 2005 and chronological tables to the statutes to the end of 2004. During the update process, the eISB project team established that a systematic error had occurred on a selection of the data contained in the Acts and statutory instruments for the period 1922 to 1998. This data error was caused by the insertion of hyperlinks, or direct clickable links to referenced parts of an Act or statutory instrument, during the process of publishing the CD-ROM version of the eISB in 1999 which caused some data to be overwritten. No such data errors have been located in post-1998 data.

The original contractor, Juta Publishing Limited of South Africa, was contacted and requested to furnish an explanation as to the nature and precise cause of the data error. This was received by the Office of the Attorney General.

After the problem came to light, the Office of the Attorney General arranged for an additional disclaimer to be added to the eISB Internet site explaining the data error problem and setting out two examples of the error. Relevant e-mail circulation lists were sent details of the data error and a notice was published in the Law Gazette and Bar Review publications. Other organisations that may have used the eISB data for 1922 to 1998 as a source of legislation were also informed.

The office discussed the provision of a solution internally as well as requesting CMOD to investigate and provide recommendations as to potential solutions.

The office sought submissions from external legal publishing companies to advise on the feasibility and costs involved in the application of the CMOD recommendations or on suitable alternative options to providing a solution to the data error problem. Expert advice is also being sought on the provision of best practices to ensure data accuracy and verification during the production process for publishing legislation. The office expects to engage a publishing company shortly and the explanation provided by Juta Publishing Limited, as referred to, will be made available to assist that process. It is expected that a report will be available from the publishing company by the end of January 2007.

See this speech in context