Prohibition of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems Bill 2026: Second Stage Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-17 ============================================================ Frances Black (IND), Industrial and Commercial Panel I am proud to put my name to this Bill alongside my colleagues Senators Alice-Mary Higgins, Lynn Ruane and Eileen Flynn. I commend Senator Higgins on the amazing work she has done on it. It is shocking to think that we need legislation such as this or that we have to write into law what should be self-evident, namely, that a machine must never be allowed to decide to take a human life. Yet, here we are. I hope the Government will rise to meet this moment. We are living through a moment in history where the decisions we make, or fail to make, about emerging technology will define what kind of world we leave behind us. The question before us is not abstract. It is this: should a machine, powered by artificial intelligence, be permitted to decide to take a human life without any human being making that decision? My answer is an unequivocal "No", and I believe this Bill reflects that answer in law. Lethal autonomous weapon systems, weapons that can select and attack targets without human intervention, are not science fiction. They exist. The Kargu-2 drone, used in Libya in 2020, is widely documented as the first recorded case of a lethal autonomous weapon being deployed in an armed attack. We are debating not a hypothetical future but a present danger. Lest anyone think this is purely theoretical, we need only look at what is happening in the world around us. There is extensive and deeply disturbing evidence that AI-targeting systems, tools that select human beings as targets with minimal oversight, have been deployed in conflict zones with catastrophic civilian casualties. Two systems in particular have been documented by Israeli investigative journalists in the context of Gaza. The first, as my colleague has said, which is called Lavender, used AI to generate a list of up to 37,000 Palestinians marked as targets. The second - I find it almost impossible to say this without feeling emotional and without it catching in my throat - is called Where's Daddy? or Hello Daddy. It was designed specifically to wait until a man returned to his home and his family and then signal the army to strike. How outrageous is it to kill them all, at home? That is not warfare governed by law. That is not meaningful human control. That is a machine waiting at a door. The civilians of Gaza - the women, children and fathers - have paid an unimaginable price. This Bill says "Never again" and "Not in Ireland's name". What makes these weapons so profoundly troubling is not only their lethality; it is the removal of human, moral agency from the act of killing. When a machine pulls the trigger, who is accountable? Is it the programmer, the manufacturer or the officer who deployed it? International humanitarian law is built on the assumption that human beings make decisions and can be held responsible for them. Lethal autonomous weapons shatter that foundation. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, has said these weapons are morally repugnant and has repeatedly called for their global prohibition. He has set a deadline of 2026 to conclude a legally binding international instrument. We are in that year now and here in this Chamber, we have an opportunity to add Ireland's voice in a meaningful legislative way. Ireland has been a co-signatory of UN General Assembly resolutions on this issue and has spoken at the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, but words and co-sponsorship must be backed up by action. The Joint Committee on Artificial Intelligence heard expert testimony that autonomous weapon systems would face fundamental obstacles complying with international humanitarian law. Academics, civil society and legal experts all pointed in the same direction. Ireland should now legislate for it. We have done this before. Ireland was the first signatory of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. We played a leading role in the Convention on Cluster Munitions and the anti-personnel mine ban convention. That legislation is not something to be proud of and then set aside. It is something that we have to live up to. This Bill is how we live up to it. This legislation will prohibit the Irish State from using, stockpiling, producing, transferring, developing or investing in lethal autonomous weapon systems. Critically, it goes further than simply banning the weapons themselves. It prohibits the investment of public money - the Minister of State's money and my money - in their development. Ireland will not fund the automation of killing. I have spent years arguing in this House that Ireland must not be complicit, through trade, investment and silence, in violations of international humanitarian law. That same principle applies here. If we allow lethal autonomous weapons to be developed, transferred or funded without restrictions, we become complicit in a future where machines decide who lives and who dies. That is why I am so proud to support this Bill today. This is not an anti-military Bill; it is a pro-humanity Bill. It says that wherever force is used, a human being must remain accountable. It says that the decision to take a life must never be delegated to an algorithm. I urge every Senator in this House to support this Bill. The world is watching whether national parliaments are willing to act. Let the Seanad show what Ireland is. I will leave every colleague in this House with one final thought - the day will come when our children or grandchildren look at us and ask what we did when they wanted to let machines decide who would live and who would die and if there was something that we could do to stop it. Let our conscience be clear and let us vote for this Bill. --- 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/2026-06-17/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:04+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-06-17