Regulation of Artificial Intelligence Bill 2026: Committee Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-09
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Niamh Smyth (FF), Cavan-Monaghan

I thank my colleagues very much for their deep interest in this. To some of the Senators, we have had an opportunity and taken notes from the previous day. Some of the Senators, if not all, will have detailed responses to some of their queries.
I take Senator Higgins's point. I thank her and Senator Ruane for this amendment on biometric analysis and biometric identification. At this point, though, they are matters for the Minister for justice. As the Senator said, that terminology has been created in legislation that he has introduced. Under the Bill that we have deliberately drafted, the terms and expressions used in the EU AI Act have the same meaning in domestic legislation. This came up in places in the previous debate. Section 2(3) expressly provides: "A word or expression used in this [Bill] that is also used in the Artificial Intelligence Regulation has, unless the context otherwise requires, the same meaning in this [Bill] it has in that Regulation." The proposed definition is already provided for in Article 3(35) of the AI Act.
We are talking about high risk. It is important to note that, before placing high-risk AI systems on the EU market or putting them into services, providers must ensure that the system complies with the requirements set out in the AI Act. One of those key obligations is that providers must carry out conformity assessment to demonstrate compliance with the AI Act. This includes risk management, data governance, technical documentation, record-keeping transparency, provision of information to deployers, human oversight, accuracy, robustness and cybersecurity. Following the assessment, providers should draw up EU declarations of conformity and mark compliance with conformity. The assessment must be repeated where the system or its intended purpose is substantially modified. Risk management and data governance providers must implement risk management systems and ensure that training, validation and testing data are appropriate, relevant and sufficiently represented.
Regarding human oversight, accuracy and cybersecurity, high-risk AI systems must be designed to allow effective human oversight and meet minimum standards of accuracy, robustness and cybersecurity.
On what the Senator said around biometric analysis and biometric identification, the two terms that she questions, we will speak with the Minister for justice. I am happy to discuss it with him. I will ask my officials to engage further on the issues that the Senator has raised today.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-07-09/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:11+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-09