An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-27 ============================================================ Alice-Mary Higgins (IND), National University of Ireland I second the amendment. I am very happy to support Senator Stephenson's Bill. I was deeply disappointed when my arms embargo Bill was blocked in this House. It was, again, a Bill seeking to address the transit of arms. Senator Stephenson's Bill is taking a different approach, but an equally constructive one, to the wider issue of the transit of arms and other inappropriate uses of our airspace and airports. The Bill is very constructive. I believe it addresses many of the reasons and rationales we heard from the Government in relation to my Bill. I hope we will see it progressing through the House. I am delighted to support and co-sign it. I also propose another amendment to the Order of Business to introduce my own Bill. I formally propose that No. 12 be taken before No. 1. I am proposing a Bill which seeks to build on something we should be very proud of, namely, Ireland's record on disarmament. Ireland was the first country to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. That was done by Frank Aiken. Ireland played a key role in hosting the negotiations to ban cluster munitions. I was there myself. They are one of the most appalling weapons that specifically target and affect civilians in their impact. We also played a key role in the anti-personnel mine ban convention. This is Ireland's record in disarmament. It is something we should be proud of - in fact we should be standing over it at a time when we are seeing a slipping away in that regard. Very worryingly, countries are leaving the cluster bomb and landmine conventions. This is our opportunity to move forward and look to the new and very serious threat posed by lethal autonomous weapon systems. These systems are defined as any weapons system with autonomy at its critical function, a weapon system that can select and attack targets without human intervention, often using AI. It separates the decision to take a human life from an individual or a command structure that can be held accountable and, instead, we have a situation where an algorithm, programme or piece of software can in fact have the ability to decide who lives or dies in the areas where they are operating. This is a perversion of our humanity. It is vital that Ireland take a leading role in pushing for legally binding treaties, regulating and, where appropriate, banning these categories of weapons. In 2023, Ireland signed a UN General Assembly motion tabled by Austria calling for the co-operation of states on the regulation of these weapons and supporting their prohibition in situations where there is no guaranteed human control or compliance with international humanitarian law. The purpose of this Bill is to put that in place. It is for Ireland to give leadership, not just in pushing for a global treaty but also on a national level to bring in a prohibition of this specific category of weapons system. It is important to note that areas like AI, defence and military action are not part of the EU law structures. For example, the AI Act explicitly carves out and does not address the use of these technologies in relation to defence or weaponry because that is a national level competence. That is why we need national level leadership. Ireland, by bringing a prohibition through, will be in a much stronger position to then drive the necessary international conversation. When we think about these programmes and how they come in, we can look to some of the programmes we have seen. Some of them may technically meet the definition here. I have drawn on the International Red Cross. Others may not. There are programmes that automatically target people based on a family member coming home, for example, the "Where's Daddy" and "Lavender" programmes. They are designed to target children, by their nature. This is something on which Ireland can give leadership. The Government has stated that this is its position internationally. I hope it will support the Bill to prohibit lethal autonomous weapons. I give credit to Stephen Reid in my office, who has given leadership in this whole programme of developing this area of work. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-27/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:00+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-27