Internet Newsletter for Lawyers |
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In the last few years there have been great changes in the quantity and range of materials available to lawyers looking for Irish legal information on the web.
For instance, thanks to the Office of the Attorney General, legislation from 1922 - 1998 (soon to be 2000) is now available on a number of sites. There is now a choice between similar or alternative products. Perhaps the biggest change is the number of commercial providers who are offering their subscription services using the web.
This brief look at the many options that are now available to Irish lawyers will look at sites under 3 headings: portals, government sites and individual sites. Whereas many of these are free, some are available only on subscription.
A portal is exactly as it sounds, a gateway to various sources of materials on other sites.
Government of Ireland www.irlgov.ie
The main Government website serves as a portal for all of the Departments of State and Government services available on the web. Many of these departments are dealt with in more detail later in the section under Government sites. On the first screen the site highlights useful services like the Attorney General's Irish Statute book (for Acts and Statutory Instrument) and the Houses of the Oireachtas (for Bills, recent Acts and debates).
The sophisticated search facility allows one to choose the category of site one wishes to search for or exclude, and to carry out and/or/not Boolean searching in a range of fields from the drop down menu. With practice this allows for the retrieval of information by searching for terms in the texts of documents from a large and increasing collection of electronically accessible government information.
British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII) www.bailii.org
This is the first point of reference when simultaneous access to both case law and legislation is required. The site has two great strengths. Firstly, it is the only service that allows searching of all legislation (1922-1998) at the same time as recent case law and determinations, and secondly, it has the power of the AustLII search system with hyperlinks, which allow you to move quickly to the text of an Act cited in a case or to a particular section cited within an Act or Statutory Instrument.
Judgments are now received directly from the Courts Service and this has improved the currency of Supreme Court cases on the site. As well as Superior Court Judgments, BAILII also contains decisions of the Competition Authority since 1991 and those of the Information Commissioner since 1998.
The Irish Legal Information Institute (IRLII) www.irlii.org
This site works with the BAILII site and is also operated from University College Cork. IRLII is the place to find the most recent cases and legislation, pending their loading on the BAILII site.
There is also a database of Leading Irish Cases organised by subject area, and the first complete index of decisions of the Irish Supreme, High and Criminal Appeal Courts, from 1997 to date. The index will give report references as cases become reported and BAILII links when they are transferred from IRLII.
The Irish law site www.irish-law.org
This is still one of the main starting points for many people, providing as it does organised links to, not just
the primary materials that most lawyers require every day, but also to many other services such as news,
discussion lists, subject sources etc. The site has been created by Dr Darius Whelan and is hosted by
University College Cork Law Faculty.
Legal Island www.legal-island.com
This has a well laid out front screen with the relevant services in both Ireland and Northern Ireland organised in a similar fashion on either side of the screen. At present they provide one updating or current awareness service on employment law for which you can register.
Sean Quinn's portal called the Irish Law Website freepages.genealogyrootsweb.com/~irishancestors/Law
This has collections of links by subject, department of the State, user, research and more. In some of the subject areas the texts of pre 1922 Acts are given. In addition to the many Irish links he has many unusual and interesting international sites.
Legal Eagle Links www.legaleaglelinks.com
This site has been set up by Declan O'Reilly, a Trainee Solicitor in Dublin. He has arranged the links by category for Irish lawyers. Whilst basing each section on Irish resources, the site also covers UK and USA sites and includes other international resources.
Delia Venables Irish Resources www.venables.co.uk/ireland.htm
Delia provides sections of her site for links to Irish firms of Solicitors, the Irish Bar and Barristers, Irish Legal Resources for research and general information purposes, Software Suppliers and Legal Publishers.
The Government portal www.irlgov.ie has already been dealt with above.
The Office of the Attorney General www.irlgov.ie/ag
The Office is responsible for and provides the Irish Statute Book service - Acts of the Oireachtas and Statutory Instruments from 1922 to 1998 (soon to be 2000). The Acts are arranged by year, and can be accessed either alphabetically or numerically or by searching for a word or phrase. A full chronological table of statutes detailing amendments up to and including 2000 is also available.
The Houses of the Oireachtas www.irlgov.ie/oireachtas
The Irish parliament was the first common law parliament to provide the complete archive of its proceedings (from 1919) fully searchable on the web. This is a very useful resource for anyone trying to follow the development of any piece of legislation. Acts and Bills from 1997 to date can be found on the site but the full text is only available in pdf format. The site also contains useful links including political parties' and Members' websites.
Office of the Information Commissioner www.irlgov.ie/oic
The Information Commissioner site provides access to the Freedom of Information Act and Regulations together with a guide to the Act and the text of all the decisions of the Commissioner with an index thereto. The Commissioner's decisions are of course also searchable on BAILII. Anyone bringing an application under Freedom of Information will find the site useful.
The Companies Office www.cro.ie
The CRO web search facility has been resumed. This allows some information to be checked free of charge - company name and registered office address. More detailed searches must be paid for as a CRO customer. The Office also provides a great deal of information about doing business with them in terms of filing returns, setting up a business, registering etc.
The Competition Authority www.tca.ie
The Competition Authority has the texts of all its decisions in addition to reports and studies, discussion papers, information booklets, speeches etc. In order to find the text of a decision it would really be necessary to know the number given to the decision by the authority. The decisions are more easily searched on BALLII.
The Land Registry www.landregistry.ie
This provides access to its records through its Electronic Access Service EAS. There is no charge for access but users of the system pay for searching, viewing or printing folios and must keep a deposit account in credit. The service can also be used to track the progress of applications to the Registry and dealings pending on a folio. New since 12 June - the first images of Land Registry paper folios and File Plans (for Dublin City and County) are now available through the EAS. This is the first batch of images from the Document Imaging Project, which intends all folios and existing filed plans being available for every county on a phased basis by the end of 2004. Galway, Sligo, Mayo, Clare and Roscommon should be complete before the end of 2002.
Departartment of Foreign Affairs www.irlgov.ie/iveagh/policy/hr
The Human Rights section provides useful information on international instruments (including the status of signature or ratification by Ireland) among many others. It also has details of the International Criminal Court.
Office of the Director of Equality Investigations www.odei.ie
The office publishes all its case law together with an index. There is also useful information on the work of the office together with the relevant legislation.
Labour Court www.labourcourt.ie
The court provides access to their database of recommendations, determinations, decisions and orders. The database may be searched by four different categories 1.dispute type 2. parties (alphabetically) 3. legislative type and 4. case number. The site also provides information on the work of the court and a guide to its procedures,
Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement www.odce.ie
The site provides information on the work and organisation of the office, relevant legislation from 1963 and some case law. Within the case law section the office gives details of current prosecutions and records the outcome of public court proceedings and the work of the ODCE under seven headings. In some cases, the full text of the relevant High Court or Supreme Court judgment is available.
Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation www.odtr.ie
The texts of all decisions and determinations are available on the site as well as a lot of other publications and information of the workings and role of the office.
The Revenue www.revenue.ie
The Commissioners provide a great range of information - legislation, tax briefings, statements of practice, guidance notes etc. In short well worth using regularly if you work in the area or indeed wish to "e-handle" your tax affairs.
Courts Service www.courts.ie
The Legal Professionals section provides the Legal Diary, Court Rules, and details of sittings in of the site, but unfortunately not the recent Circuit Court Rules. Also, some of the amending rules for the Superior and District Courts from recent years do not seem to be included. For the public there is helpful information on the different courts and functions of court offices and a FAQ section.
The Data Protection Commissioner www.dataprivacy.ie
This provides the relevant legislation (Irish and EU) together with Case studies that have been extracted from the Annual Reports, a news section and key definitions.
The Law Reform Commission www.lawreform.ie
This provides the texts of its publications, either in html or pdf format. While all the publications are available "to read or download online" (free of charge) contact details for purchasing the reports are also provided.
Bar Council of Ireland www.lawlibrary.ie
Practising Irish barristers are members of the Law Library (their principal place of work). A similar arrangement for the bar exists in Edinburgh and Belfast. The site provides an introduction to the Irish courts system, the barrister's profession in Ireland, selected articles from the Bar Review and conference papers. You can search for a barrister by surname; and/or additional languages; by circuit; by areas of practice; or by specialisation. For each of these categories there is a drop down menu to assist with searching. The search is running on the Bar Council's official membership database and it is therefore the most up to date way of finding a practising barrister.
Competition online http://www.clubi.ie/competition/compframesite/index.htm
The Competition site has continued to develop since it was the 1999 winner of a top fifty Legal Research Web Sites Award. This service is available free of charge after registration. It provides access to: all the decisions of the Competition Authority with a search facility, hyperlinked footnotes and indexes; information on the regulation of public utilities; enforcement guidelines and other information from the Competition Authority; news and articles on competition, regulation etc; and "the World's Biggest Competition, Anti-trust and Regulatory Sites List".
Firstlaw www.firstlaw.ie
This commercial service is the only online service aiming to be comprehensive and provides access to all primary materials, case law of the Superior Courts, legislation and determinations of various tribunals and official offices together with a current awareness service, some news and access to UK and European case law. The service is subscription based if you wish to view or search the full text of documents but you may search the abstracts without registering or charge. The service has expanded rapidly in the last few years and now has an impressive body of material, since 1999: all written judgments (some from 98); all SIs (but they suffer from the same supply problems as everyone else); all Acts; Competition Authority decisions from 2000; selected EAT decisions.
Irish Times Electronic Information Services ITELIS (LEXIS/NEXIS) web.lexis-nexis.com/professional
ITELIS (the Irish provider of LEXIS/NEXIS) is subscription based and provides by far the largest collection of Irish case law - both reported and unreported starting in 1950. The ILRM have not been available on the service since their withdrawal by Thompson but ITELIS have replaced most of them with the judgment as delivered by the court so that the text is once again searchable. Although best for the length of coverage of cases there is a slight delay in provision or loading of current judgments. Unlike UK and US services on LEXIS no additional materials, such as legislation or journals, are available for Ireland. Of course, ITELIS customers also have access to the full LEXIS databases of other jurisdictions.
The Institute of Taxation www.taxireland.ie
The Institute has an excellent site that as well as providing extensive well organised tax information, links and publications provides online access to their subscription service Taxfind. This includes all the Institute's publications legislation and books, Irish Tax Review, Revenue materials and UK reference materials from CCH.
The Law Society of Ireland www.lawsociety.ie
The Law society has a well organised site explaining and supporting its work. There is a frequently updated "What's New" and a "Case a Day" section. Their employment opportunities section carries a wide variety of vacancies. The site has a "Members Only" section where solicitors can obtain guidance notes, template documents and other professional service material.
Westlaw Ireland www.westlaw.ie
Purely a current awareness service at the moment, it is intended that the service will be like Westlaw in other jurisdictions and provide access to the full texts of materials (end 2002). The present service includes material since end 2001 and provides short abstracts for a range of materials (case law, newpaper law reports, press releases, legislative developments, news, business information, journal article information and EU developments). The hit list that results from a search often does not display sufficient information to identify exactly the status of the material retrieved. In order to know whether it is a Supreme Court case, newspaper item or journal article one would have to select the item and display the text of the abstract only then would you get the court or date or journal reference.
Jennefer Aston is Consultant Librarian for the Bar Council of Ireland. She also acts as an Information Consultant for Law Libraries and she runs Lawbooks Ireland, a successful bookselling business.
Email jaston@iol.ie
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