Regulation of Artificial Intelligence Bill 2026: Committee Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-09
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Patricia Stephenson (SD), Labour Panel

I move amendment No. 2:
In page 11, between lines 15 and 16, to insert the following:
" "Service" means the Public Appointments Service;".
My amendments within this group largely deal with the establishment of the board. The Minister of State will have seen these amendments when my colleague, Deputy Gibney, submitted them in the Dáil. They are about governance and trying to strengthen the governance of the AI office to ensure its independence. Under the current drafting of this legislation, I do not think there is independence. We talked about this issue last week and the Minister of State talked about it in her response. However, I do not believe that we have sufficient protections and safeguards around the independence of the office. There are multiple areas where the independence is undermined in the legislation.
Amendment No. 2 relates to the Public Appointments Service, PAS. Setting a high standard includes using the PAS as a tool for hiring and making sure that it is distinct from the Department itself. That is currently not guaranteed within the existing legislation. This amendment would ensure that no appointments are made at the behest of any one Minister and ensures transparency. I do not think that having direct appointments in any situation is tantamount to good managerial or governance practices.
The Minister's ability to give written direction to the office as it currently stands is a violation of the independence of the office. The idea is that the office will take action via ministerial direction and I would like to ensure that is not possible. I know that within the legislation there is a carve-out to state that the Minister cannot provide direction specifically when it comes to regulation, but that protection does not exist when it comes to the issues of literacy, innovation and all the other functions that the office carries out. That undermines the independence piece. If the Minister is able to write to the office providing guidance on direction of travel, I do not know how we can say that is normal and leads to the independence of an independent State body.
We have models where it works. We have the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, IHREC, Coimisiún na Meán and the Data Protection Commission, DPC. They are independent in how they were created for good reason and we are just not doing that here and I do not know why.
When it comes to the establishment of the board, amendment No. 8 is around restructuring board appointments to give better independence to ensure it is not within the gift of any one Minister to appoint the first board or to appoint the first CEO with the normal process and oversight for a full CEO and board term. I do not know why the process for appointments is not currently grounded in the legislation. These amendments are all about grounding that in the legislation as it stands because it has not been written that way.

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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