Prohibition of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems Bill 2026: Second Stage Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-17 ============================================================ Fiona O'Loughlin (FF), Administrative Panel It gives me great delight to welcome my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Catherine Ardagh. It is the first time I have had the chance to address her formally and officially as Minister of State. As a former Senator, she has a special understanding of, and support for, the Seanad. I wish her well in her important portfolio and congratulate her. On behalf of Fianna Fáil, I welcome this debate. Fianna Fáil will not oppose the Bill. I acknowledge that the motivation for this Bill is grounded in humanitarian principles, for which Ireland has been a long-standing international champion. It is in keeping with Ireland's established policy position on disarmament, arms control, non-proliferation and, of course, human rights. However, the Bill is somewhat premature in seeking national legislation before international agreement is found on core concepts, including essential legal definitions. When Ireland has legislated previously in respect of arms control, it has done so on the basis of relevant international agreements in which legal concepts, norms, terms and definitions are widely agreed and understood. Discussions at international level to establish an agreed set of norms, terms and definitions in respect of lethal autonomous weapons systems, LAWS, or the use of artificial intelligence in the military domain are at an early stage. It is important to affirm Ireland's long-standing position that the use of autonomous weapons systems to identify, select and engage targets without any or nominal human involvement is fundamentally incompatible with international humanitarian law and the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution which underpin it. At the same time, it is neither timely nor possible to legislate nationally in the absence of an agreed international approach. The breadth of both the definitions and the reference to components of autonomous weapons systems would be likely to bring a broad range of commercial products within its scope and would be unimplementable in practice. The fact the Bill proposes to create criminal offences in this respect underlines the need for precision and certainty when seeking to introduce prohibitions of this nature. Regulating LAWS requires comprehensive and detailed work to establish rules around the full life cycle of these systems, from design to deployment. A large body of international experts is currently working to establish common international definitions of autonomous weapons systems, their development and deployment, as well as the broader uses of AI in the military domain. This includes international AI dialogues on technical, ethical and legal elements. Ireland is active, alongside like minded partners, in seeking to establish international regulation of LAWS. The primary forum for these efforts is the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons and its group of governmental experts, GGE, on LAWS, in Geneva. The approach and elements for any future international instruments are still being developed and efforts are at a delicate stage with a decision on a path forward to be taken by November of this year. Ireland has been influential in helping to shape this process and will continue to advocate for a progressive outcome in the months ahead. We recognise the urgency of controlling the use of autonomous weapons systems and we are at the forefront of negotiations internationally. The Minister and the Government are open to further engagement while international efforts continue. The Bill contains elements that are similar in nature to the provision of the Cluster Munitions and Anti-Personnel Mines Act 2008. That legislation was enacted to enable Ireland to give effect to two existing international conventions, namely the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions and the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction. Notably, the relevant definitions in the 2008 Act replicate the definitions in those conventions which themselves have been the subject of extensive negotiations among states. Enacting national legislation now without knowing what the agreed approach to regulating laws at the international level will be, would pre-empt the outcome of the ongoing GGE process. The difficulty in proceeding on a stand-alone basis is illustrated by the fact that the Bill proposes to prohibit LAWS by reference to the definition of autonomous weapons systems which has been used as a working definition by the International Committee of the Red Cross, ICRC, in circumstances where it is not itself advocating for an outright prohibition on LAWS. --- 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