Oireachtas debates are pulled from the internet

NEARLY 10 years of footage of debates from Leinster House, that was accessible to the public, has been permanently deleted from the internet by the Oireachtas.

The massive bank of footage was widely used by journalists, academics, members of the public and was particularly popular on social media in catching out politicians making policy U-turns.

The database disappeared from the Oireachtas website earlier this month because of what the legislature said was ‘minimal traffic’ looking at the files.

The move has been condemned by politicians, who said it was scarcely believable that a valuable resource like that could simply be let vanish.

Fianna Fáil’s communications spokesman, Timmy Dooley TD, said: ‘We should be providing easy access to the archives.’

The Oireachtas said the archive dated back 10 years but had not covered absolutely all proceedings of the Dáil, Seanad, and committees.

It added that most of the videos had been in a file type that had become obsolete and were causing some people difficulties when they tried to view them.