Irish Law Mcp

Irish Law MCP Server

> ### ▶ Try this MCP instantly via Ansvar Gateway > 50 free queries/day · no card required · OAuth signup at ansvar.eu/gateway > > One endpoint, one OAuth signup, access from any MCP-compatible client.

Connect

Claude Code (one line):

claude mcp add ansvar --transport http https://gateway.ansvar.eu/mcp

Claude Desktop / Cursor — add to claude_desktop_config.json (or mcp.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ansvar": {
      "type": "url",
      "url": "https://gateway.ansvar.eu/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Claude.ai — Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector → paste https://gateway.ansvar.eu/mcp

First request opens an OAuth flow at ansvar.eu/gateway. After signup, your client is bound to your account; tier (free / premium / team / company) determines fan-out, quota, and which downstream MCPs are reachable.

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Self-host this MCP

You can also clone this repo and build the corpus yourself. The schema, fetcher, and tool implementations all live here. What is not in the repo is the pre-built database — TDM and standards-licensing constraints on the upstream sources mean we host the corpus on Ansvar infrastructure rather than redistribute it as a public artifact.

Build your own: run this repo's ingestion script (entry-point varies per repo — typically scripts/ingest.sh, npm run ingest, or make ingest; check the repo root).

The Irish Statute Book alternative for the AI age.

[](https://registry.modelcontextprotocol.io) [](https://opensource.org/licenses/Apache-2.0) [](https://github.com/Ansvar-Systems/Ireland-law-mcp) [](https://github.com/Ansvar-Systems/Ireland-law-mcp/actions/workflows/ci.yml) [](https://github.com/Ansvar-Systems/Ireland-law-mcp/actions/workflows/check-updates.yml) [](docs/EUINTEGRATIONGUIDE.md) [](docs/EUINTEGRATIONGUIDE.md)

Query 3,972 Irish statutes -- from the Data Protection Act 2018 and Criminal Justice Act to the Companies Act 2014, Employment Equality Acts, and more -- directly from Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible client.

If you're building legal tech, compliance tools, or doing Irish legal research, this is your verified reference database.

Built by Ansvar Systems -- Stockholm, Sweden

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Why This Exists

Irish legal research is scattered across the Irish Statute Book, the Attorney General's office publications, and EUR-Lex. Whether you're:

• A solicitor or barrister validating citations in a brief or contract
• A compliance officer checking if a statute is still in force or amended
• A legal tech developer building tools on Irish law
• A researcher tracing legislative provisions across 3,972 statutes

...you shouldn't need dozens of browser tabs and manual cross-referencing. Ask Claude. Get the exact provision. With context.

This MCP server makes Irish law searchable, cross-referenceable, and AI-readable.

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Example Queries

Once connected, just ask naturally:

• "What does the Data Protection Act 2018 say about processing sensitive personal data?"
• "Is the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000 still in force?"
• "Find provisions about employment equality in the Employment Equality Acts 1998-2015"
• "Which Irish statutes implement the GDPR?"
• "What EU directive is the basis for the Companies Act 2014 provisions on annual returns?"
• "Validate the citation 'Data Protection Act 2018, s. 71'"
• "Build a legal stance on data breach notification requirements under Irish law"
• "Compare incident reporting obligations in the Network and Information Systems Directive (NIS) transposition"

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What's Included

| Category | Count | Details | |----------|-------|---------| | Statutes | 3,972 statutes | Comprehensive Irish legislation from the Irish Statute Book | | Provisions | 91,528 sections | Full-text searchable with FTS5 | | Preparatory Works | 5,926 documents | Oireachtas Bills and Explanatory Memoranda | | EU Cross-References | Included | Directives and regulations linked to Irish transpositions | | Database Size | 220 MB | Optimized SQLite, portable | | Daily Updates | Automated | Freshness checks against irishstatutebook.ie |

Verified data only -- every citation is validated against official sources (Irish Statute Book, Attorney General's office). Zero LLM-generated content.

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See It In Action

Why This Works

Verbatim Source Text (No LLM Processing):

• All statute text is ingested from the Irish Statute Book (irishstatutebook.ie) official sources
• Provisions are returned unchanged from SQLite FTS5 database rows
• Zero LLM summarization or paraphrasing -- the database contains statute text, not AI interpretations

Smart Context Management:

• Search returns ranked provisions with BM25 scoring (safe for context)
• Provision retrieval gives exact text by Act short title + section number
• Cross-references help navigate without loading everything at once

Technical Architecture:

Irish Statute Book → Parse → SQLite → FTS5 snippet() → MCP response
                      ↑                      ↑
               Provision parser       Verbatim database query

Traditional Research vs. This MCP

| Traditional Approach | This MCP Server | |---------------------|-----------------| | Search Irish Statute Book by Act name | Search by plain English: "data processing consent" | | Navigate multi-part statutes manually | Get the exact provision with context | | Manual cross-referencing between Acts | build_legal_stance aggregates across sources | | "Is this statute still in force?" → check manually | check_currency tool → answer in seconds | | Find EU basis → dig through EUR-Lex | get_eu_basis → linked EU directives instantly | | Check multiple sites for updates | Daily automated freshness checks | | No API, no integration | MCP protocol → AI-native |

Traditional: Search Irish Statute Book → Navigate Act HTML → Ctrl+F → Cross-reference → Check EUR-Lex for EU basis → Repeat

This MCP: "Which section of the Data Protection Act 2018 transposes GDPR Article 9 on special categories?" → Done.

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Available Tools (13)

Core Legal Research Tools (8)

| Tool | Description | |------|-------------| | search_legislation | FTS5 full-text search across 91,528 provisions with BM25 ranking | | get_provision | Retrieve specific provision by Act short title + section number | | validate_citation | Validate citation against database -- zero-hallucination check | | build_legal_stance | Aggregate citations from multiple Acts for a legal topic | | format_citation | Format citations per Irish conventions (full/short/pinpoint) | | check_currency | Check if statute is in force, amended, or repealed | | list_sources | List all available statutes with metadata and data provenance | | about | Server info, capabilities, dataset statistics, and coverage summary |

EU Law Integration Tools (5)

| Tool | Description | |------|-------------| | get_eu_basis | Get EU directives/regulations that underpin an Irish statute | | get_irish_implementations | Find Irish laws implementing a specific EU act | | search_eu_implementations | Search EU documents with Irish implementation counts | | get_provision_eu_basis | Get EU law references for a specific provision | | validate_eu_compliance | Check implementation status of Irish statutes against EU directives |

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EU Law Integration

Ireland is an EU member state. Irish legislation directly transposes EU directives and implements EU regulations, creating a traceable mapping between Irish and EU law.

Key areas of EU-Irish law alignment:

• GDPR (2016/679) -- implemented via the Data Protection Act 2018 and Data Protection Regulations 2018 (S.I. No. 174/2018)
• NIS2 Directive (2022/2555) -- transposed into Irish network and information security legislation
• eIDAS Regulation (910/2014) -- applicable directly; supplemented by national electronic signature provisions
• DORA (2022/2554) -- financial sector digital operational resilience obligations
• AI Act (2024/1689) -- EU regulation applicable directly across all member states
• Companies Directives -- Company law harmonisation across the EU single market

The EU bridge tools provide bi-directional lookup: find which Irish statutes implement a given EU act, or find which EU acts underpin a given Irish provision.

| Metric | Value | |--------|-------| | EU Member State | Since 1973 | | Legal System | Common law (with Irish constitutional overlay) | | Official Statute Collection | Irish Statute Book (irishstatutebook.ie) | | Parliament | Oireachtas (oireachtas.ie) | | EUR-Lex Integration | Automated metadata fetching |

See [EUINTEGRATIONGUIDE.md](docs/EUINTEGRATIONGUIDE.md) for detailed documentation and [EUUSAGEEXAMPLES.md](docs/EUUSAGEEXAMPLES.md) for practical examples.

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Data Sources & Freshness

All content is sourced from authoritative Irish legal databases:

• Irish Statute Book -- Official consolidated Acts and Statutory Instruments, Office of the Attorney General
• Oireachtas -- Preparatory works (Bills and Explanatory Memoranda)
• EUR-Lex -- Official EU law database (metadata only)

Automated Freshness Checks (Daily)

A [daily GitHub Actions workflow](.github/workflows/check-updates.yml) monitors all data sources:

| Source | Check | Method | |--------|-------|--------| | Statute amendments | Irish Statute Book comparison | All 3,972 statutes checked | | New statutes | Irish Statute Book publications (90-day window) | Diffed against database | | Preparatory works | Oireachtas Bills feed (30-day window) | New Bills detected | | EU reference staleness | Git commit timestamps | Flagged if >90 days old |

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Security

This project uses multiple layers of automated security scanning:

| Scanner | What It Does | Schedule | |---------|-------------|----------| | CodeQL | Static analysis for security vulnerabilities | Weekly + PRs | | Semgrep | SAST scanning (OWASP top 10, secrets, TypeScript) | Every push | | Gitleaks | Secret detection across git history | Every push | | Trivy | CVE scanning on filesystem and npm dependencies | Daily | | Docker Security | Container image scanning + SBOM generation | Daily | | Socket.dev | Supply chain attack detection | PRs | | OSSF Scorecard | OpenSSF best practices scoring | Weekly | | Dependabot | Automated dependency updates | Weekly |

See [SECURITY.md](SECURITY.md) for the full policy and vulnerability reporting.

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Important Disclaimers

Legal Advice

> THIS TOOL IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE > > Statute text is sourced from the Irish Statute Book (Office of the Attorney General). However: > - This is a research tool, not a substitute for professional legal counsel > - Court case coverage is limited -- do not rely solely on this for case law research > - Verify critical citations against primary sources for court filings > - EU cross-references are extracted from Irish statute text, not EUR-Lex full text > - Always confirm current in-force status via the Irish Statute Book before relying on a provision professionally

Before using professionally, read: [DISCLAIMER.md](DISCLAIMER.md) | [PRIVACY.md](PRIVACY.md)

Client Confidentiality

Queries go through the Claude API. For privileged or confidential matters, use on-premise deployment. See [PRIVACY.md](PRIVACY.md) for Law Society of Ireland and Bar Council of Ireland compliance guidance.

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Documentation

• [EU Integration Guide](docs/EUINTEGRATIONGUIDE.md) -- Detailed EU cross-reference documentation
• [EU Usage Examples](docs/EUUSAGEEXAMPLES.md) -- Practical EU lookup examples
• [Security Policy](SECURITY.md) -- Vulnerability reporting and scanning details
• [Disclaimer](DISCLAIMER.md) -- Legal disclaimers and professional use notices
• [Privacy](PRIVACY.md) -- Client confidentiality and data handling

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Development

Setup

git clone https://github.com/Ansvar-Systems/Ireland-law-mcp
cd Ireland-law-mcp
npm install
npm run build
npm test

Running Locally

npm run dev                                       # Start MCP server
npx @anthropic/mcp-inspector node dist/index.js   # Test with MCP Inspector

Data Management

npm run ingest              # Ingest statutes from Irish Statute Book
npm run build:db            # Rebuild SQLite database
npm run check-updates       # Check for amendments and new statutes

Performance

• Search Speed:

Built with care in Stockholm, Sweden

Source & license

This open-source MCP server is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: Ansvar-Systems
• Source: Ansvar-Systems/Irish-law-mcp
• License: Apache-2.0
• Homepage: https://ireland-law-mcp.vercel.app

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.