Dáil antics back in frame online
After threat to take footage off line, as revealed by MoS, new plan to make even more archive f ilm available
A VIDEO archive containing years of debates from Leinster House will be entirely restored after its controversial removal from the internet.
The vast treasure trove of footage was taken from the website of the Oireachtas in September – before being quickly reinstated after its disappearance was revealed by the Irish Mail on Sunday.
Now, Leinster House is planning not only to put all the video back online permanently but to make even older footage accessible.
A meeting of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission earlier this month was told TDs were now
Used by journalists to highlight U-turns
looking for the conversion of the full broadcasting archive to be examined.
More than 50,000 hours of tape dating back as far as 1990 will eventually be made available, according to a new plan.
The archives are widely used by journalists and on social media to highlight U-turns by politicians along with political promises that were never kept.
A new five-year database of Dáil, Seanad, and committee debates will be created and constantly updated as part of the plan at a cost of around €4,000 per year.
Separately, complete debates dating back as far as 2009 will also be fully restored at a cost of €1,300 per annum for storage.
A third stage has also been put forward to create a ‘legacy project’ that would build a 27-year archive of proceedings.
A briefing document explained: ‘We propose to extend the scope of the legacy project to include formatting the legacy archive for web use.’
They said this could incur additional costs of between €8,000 and €21,000 a year, and the possibility of €200,000 in other costs for ‘player development and support costs’.
The document said it could take between two and three years to complete the project but that the archive would then be permanent.
Internal emails reveal how the original decision was made to delete the archive, with the Oireachtas apparently believing they were hardly used. One email said: ‘I’m really not convinced we will need those files ever again.’
When controversy over the deletion of the files was first raised, the same official explained: ‘Our web analytics showed that there was minimal traffic going to video files older than the last month or so.’
However, what was not understood properly at the time was that while clips may have been accessed by just one single person, they may well have subsequently been broadcast to large audiences via TV, radio and social media.
‘Not convinced we’ll need those files again’