Regulation of Artificial Intelligence Bill 2026: Second Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-01
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Lynn Ruane (IND), University of Dublin

I express deep frustration and concern at the extremely rushed nature of our engagement with this substantive and substantial legislation. The Bill was published by the Government on 17 June, with Second Stage taken in Dáil Éireann a week later. Committee and Remaining Stages were taken in the Dáil last evening, with the debate guillotined after the consideration of just six of 80 tabled amendments. That does not give us any sign that there has been legislative scrutiny. Scrutiny improves legislation and we should always view it as such.
As the Seanad commences its consideration of the legislation this evening, we are still awaiting the publication of the pre-legislative scrutiny report on the draft heads prepared by the Joint Committee on Enterprise, Tourism and Employment. We want to engage with the Minister of State in good faith. As a member of the AI committee, I understand our functions as a special committee in that we were not in a position to engage with the legislation. This made it even more important for that engagement to happen in this and the other House because we have Members of both Houses who have spent nine months doing nothing but interrogating the use of AI. Those contributions would be really important given that the AI committee could not work with this legislation and it had to go to a different committee. That is fundamentally bad parliamentary practice.
I add a note of caution as we prepare amendments for next week. Yesterday, we only saw six out of 80 amendments discussed in the Dáil. I hope the Minister of State will give us assurances today that this House will be given time to consider amendments to the legislation. As many of my colleagues are aware from previous discussions of AI in this Chamber, I have significant concerns about the development and deployment of artificial intelligence and AI tools in society, with particular regard to the potential impact on privacy, fundamental human rights and equality.
I have been a member of the Oireachtas joint committee for over a year and what has stood out in that process, above all else, is the substantial difference in the perspectives of those in government and industry and those in digital rights bodies, civil society and academia. That brings us back to the conversation on which Department AI should be placed in. When it is placed in a Department with a sole focus on enterprise, do we lean the AI legislation or AI conversation more towards industry than those civil society, academic, digital rights bodies frameworks?
Government spokespersons often talk about the extraordinary potential presented for our economy by AI and the need for balance to be achieved between this potential and mitigating the many risks posed by technologies to citizens. Like many of the civil society and academic leaders that the joint committee on AI has engaged with, I am of the view that the Government is getting this balance wrong. It is embracing a policy approach to AI that prioritises Ireland's role as a digital hub over the protection of the rights of individuals.
The EU's landmark Artificial Intelligence Act, which must be implemented by 1 August to fulfil the deadlines agreed, was meant to create a comprehensive framework for accountability and transparency on the use of AI in society. However, since its adoption in 2024, we have borne witness to a co-ordinated campaign by industry to undermine its efficacy, with the legislation's protections now at risk of falling victim to the EU's deregulation agenda through the so-called AI omnibus proposals. The EU landmark accountability law for social media and other digital platforms, the Digital Services Act, is also at risk.
This agenda is being pushed at the highest levels of the European Commission under the banner of simplification, but the danger posed is that core protections for individuals and communities will be eroded. For truth, democracy and the rule of law to endure in the era of AI, we have to create robust ecosystems of transparency and accountability.
Large tech and AI companies, despite selling promises of innovation and broader societal benefit, monetise and routinely undermine the society they claim to serve. Put simply, they cannot be trusted to self-regulate. Given the track record of the technology industry in this regard, stricter regulation and enforcement are among the clearest ways governments can demonstrate that they serve the public interest first and foremost.
Effective regulation also relies on active enforcement, something Ireland has demonstrated, since the implementation of the GDPR, it is unwilling to do. The Data Protection Commission recently acknowledged that, apart from amicable resolutions on trivial issues, Ireland has not completed a single EU inquiry into Google or enforced against any big tech firm or its subsidiaries in the ten years since the GDPR was enacted.
The effectiveness of the AI office will depend not only on its statutory designation as an independent body but also on whether it is genuinely independent in practice. As drafted, the Bill provides significant ministerial influence over the appointment of the first board and CEO, who may serve for a full five-year term. Given the office’s central role in supervising compliance with the AI Act and co-ordinating enforcement across multiple regulators, there is a strong argument for more robust safeguards around appointments, governance and operational autonomy.
The Bill establishes the AI office as the national single point of contact, but many of the substantive enforcement powers reside with sectoral market surveillance authorities. While the distributed model has advantages, questions remain about whether the AI office has sufficient authority to co-ordinate investigations, resolve disputes between regulators and ensure consistency of enforcement. Much appears to depend on co-operation agreements and voluntary co-ordination arrangements.
Section 43 of the Bill provides for the establishment of a national AI register containing important information, including prohibited AI practices and serious incidents involving high-risk systems. However, the Bill does not appear to clearly state the extent to which this register will be publicly accessible. Transparency is essential to building public trust in AI regulation. Consideration should be given to whether the register, or at least significant elements of it, should be available to the public.
There is relatively little in the Bill itself that explicitly centres the protection of fundamental rights, privacy, equality, non-discrimination and democratic participation as guiding principles for the exercise of regulatory powers. While rights protections may be implicit in the AI Act, the Bill should still contain a clearer statement requiring the AI office, market surveillance authorities and adjudicators to exercise their functions with regard to fundamental rights.
A significant amount of detail appears to be deferred to future ministerial regulations and implementation measures. The way AI tools and systems are developed, deployed and governed reflects choices about power, priorities and values. While flexibility is important in a rapidly evolving environment, democratic accountability must be protected. The Oireachtas should have greater clarity regarding the scope of these matters.
I hope the Minister of State can confirm to us in the Chamber today that she will allow for adequate scrutiny of this legislation, especially given that this Chamber has several Members who are on the AI committee who can devote time to it and actually engage in scrutiny of a kind that might not have been done by the enterprise committee. We will seek clarification on that as we go forward.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-07-01/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:08+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-01