Help
This Guide is designed to get you started using this
service and deals with the most frequently asked questions by users
making use of this website:
By browsing
When you click on the browse button you
are presented with a list of Acts of the Oireachtas, presented by
decade. Click on the year to see a list of Acts for that Year.
Click on the Act Title and the Act will be presented in your browser window.
By Searching
The
fastest way to find specific information is by searching. The search
form is accessed via the search button on the site tool bar. Click on
the search form and the search interface loads.
Searches may be run against Long Titles, Short Titles, Sidenotes, or in the entire body of the Act.
The results can be restricted to
return a maximum number of hits (25 is default) and further restricted
by year range, start and end, Act number or section number.
For example, if you want to know how many Acts occurring between 1978 and 1990 had welfare in the Title and made reference to children in the body of the Act, the search request would look as follows:
Press Search to carry out the search.
The results are presented in the results window.
Click on the title to open the page. Document hits are highlighted in yellow
Full Boolean search Syntax is supported (see below for a comprehensive list of supported search operators).
The following Search Operators are supported within the search interface.
Phrase Search
A phrase search interprets the words input as a phrase and finds only the commented terms. For example Finance Act'will only find that exact phrase within the database. No quotations are needed.
AND
Boolean AND logic operator. Searches for records containing both of
the words it separates. Example: Powers of Council AND Minister for
Finance.
OR
Boolean OR logic operator. Searches for records containing either
of the words it separates. Example: Powers of Council OR Minister
for Finance.
NOT
Boolean NOT logic operator. Searches for records containing the
query word preceding it without containing the word following it.
Example: Senator NOT TD.
PROXIMITY
Proximity operator. Searches for two words within a
specified number of words. This is constructed by using quotes to wrap
the two terms followd by a tilde and the number of words within
proximity. Example: "jurisdiction improsonment"~9. Note: there is no space required after the closing quotation marks.
?
Wildcard operator for a single character; matches any one
character. Example wom?n would return a search for woman and
women.
*
Wildcard operator for strings; matches any string. Examples: micro* matches microscope, microcomputer; *late matches relate, translate.
STEMMING
The Stemming operator forces a word stem. Examples: micro~ matches microscope, microcomputer.
DATE RANGE
The Date Range operator returns a search for only the start or end date for the year specified.
![Irish icon: [GA]](images/help_ga.gif)
When
viewing an English Language Act simply clicking on the icon found on
the left-hand side of the screen will switch your view to the same
location in the Corresponding Irish Language version of the Act.
Use the Browsers back button to return to the English Language Version.
When
viewing an English language Act, simply clicking on the Split-Screen
button will change the browser setting to display an Irish Version and
its corresponding English version of the Act side by side.
Use the Browsers back button to return to the English Language Version.
To print the section of the Act that is on your screen, simply select File and then select Print or Press CTRL+P.
To
print an entire Act, click on the Print Preview Button. This will
present a copy of the Act in your browser window. Press CTRL+P to print.
To save an entire Act or section of an
Act to your PC, select the File menu and select Save As to save the
file to a location on your PC. A file saved as HTML or HTM can be
opened and edited by most Word Processors.
If you want to save the entire Act we
recommend that you select the Print Preview function to generate a copy
of the Act and then use the File, Save As function to save it to your
PC.
To copy content from the browser window,
simply highlight the text you want to copy and select Copy from the
Edit menu OR press CRTL+C.
To paste the content in your application open the application select the Edit menu and Paste OR press CTRL+V.
