Irish Government – Data Sharing, APIs, and Mashups

4th of July 2008 by admin

The blog post title is enough to make one dream…

We’ve already covered this subject before – Time for api.gov.ie?

John has details on UK Government Moves Forward with Data Sharing, APIs, and Mashup Contest

In Ireland we have

- millions (overspent) spent on Reach projectPublic Service Broker
- no national postcode system
- not to mention the walled garden mentally to data

Some suggestions for Govt folks

- engage with Irish development community
— check the following work done by folks in the community
—– planningbuddy from ElectricMill
—– PostCode system
—– Casualty Figures from Electric Mill
- engage folks like John Musser, JP Rangaswami
- publish in structured format – RSS/ATOM/etc [some free SEO...] [disclosure: my own company has tried... and failed with eGovt and rss - retailers get it]

Any ideas from the Web2Ireland community on how we can help our own Govt ?

Tags: , ,

6 Responses to “Irish Government – Data Sharing, APIs, and Mashups”

Absolutely massive ideas in here. I think you might be surprised at how open some of the government people might be to such “pilots”. Drop me an email if you need a few contacts.

I was reading yesterday how an api was released in the UK for social problems. For example, a burst pipe was noticed on a road in London, someone pinpoints the location, describes the issue in detail and then it gets sent to the relavant council authority. It notes when the issue was posted, the reply from the council and any subsequent action undertaken by the governing authority.

I totally agree that the data made availabile by the government should be a priority. Hiding all this info just leaves a bad taste in my mouth, as does the fee required by the FOI act.

Good ideas there.
I was recently talking to someone in North Tipperary county council. They ahve put the whole planning application system online. It’s searchable, very user friendly and will soon have integrated mapping.
What i’ve noticed is that these kind of initiatives within local and national government more often than not come from the bottom up…

http://www.OpenApp.ie could provide an ‘in’ and some credibility leverage as they have established a trusted working relationship with HSE. The apps they build are based on opensource stuff but as yet the data is strictly processed and viewed internally.

We begun using the mashup approach to map crime in the UK at SpotCrime.com

Currently, the data is coming from news sources.

if you are making companies close because no one is spending money therefore more people are drawing the dole getting less than €200 a week to pay for the mortgage to by food to pay bills etc. and you say the cost of living has come down if the government can’t live on less than €200 a week why should we the government should try walking in our shoes for change and see what it’s really like and not sitting up there big and grand house spending our (tax payers) hard earned money!