The getEntity() function that provides access to item data in lua returns a Lua table the reflects the structure of the data item as used by the API. This is very inconvenient for getting claims/statements and their values: In order to get all statements about property p123, one would have to loop over all claims and look at the property. Also, one would have to use the property ID.
A helper function getClaims(property) should be added to the entity structure, allowing the list of claims about a given property to be accessed by simply providing the property ID or (localized) property name.