Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) (Amendment) Bill 2025: Second Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-27
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Garret Kelleher (FG), Industrial and Commercial Panel

On behalf of the Fine Gael group, I welcome the Bill before us. As the Minister articulated in his opening remarks, it is a step forward in fulfilling the obligations made under the programme for Government, especially in the support of Garda use of artificial intelligence. Again, this is the type of thing that we would speak about in this Chamber on numerous occasions, particularly in relation to Garda powers and legislation on a broader basis to deal with modern challenges faced today that would not have been encountered previously, as we have discussed on umpteen occasions here in recent weeks, such as the challenges of social media, how we can counteract misinformation and disinformation, and enabling the legislation to be modern, robust and deal with the challenges that we face today. There is also the importance of allowing the use on a more widespread basis of the facial recognition technology, especially for serious crimes and in cases of missing persons. I do not have a huge amount to add to the contributions that have already been made by the Minister in his opening remarks and Senators Gallagher, McDowell and Boyhan other than to welcome the legislation as a step forward. It has the full support of the Fine Gael group.

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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