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. 3:
In page 13, line 34, after “foster” to insert “ethical and responsible”.
My colleagues' amendment No. 4 is the same. The Bill includes the word "foster" and we would like it to include "ethical and responsible". The Minister of State will be familiar with this amendment from the Dáil because my colleague, Deputy Gibney, tabled it.
I do not know why we are not pursuing it. This seems like a straightforward amendment. It seeks to strengthen the Bill such that when we talk about fostering AI innovation and literacy, we are talking about fostering ethical and responsible AI innovation and literacy. The Minister of State might outline why she does not think it is appropriate to talk about ethical and responsible AI innovation and literacy. Surely, it is a given that we include that kind of language because of the scale of the danger AI poses and the concerns to which it gives rise.
The Minister of State said that "promoting and fostering AI innovation and literacy" is sufficiently broad and that the wider framework of the AI Act already ensures that "innovation is pursued in a manner that is human-centric, trustworthy and [proactive] of fundamental rights". I got that quote from the Official Report of the proceedings of the Dáil. I do not necessarily agree with the Minister of State. If we want to emphasise the role of the regulatory framework as protecting fundamental rights, then it must be spelt out within the legislation and explicitly defined in the remit of the office to which this Bill relates. Talking about an ethical responsibility is crucial when we want to frame the role and responsibility of that office as human rights-centric.
In the Dáil, the Minister of State said that there are no definitions of the terms "ethics" and "responsibility" in the legislation. However, the word "ethics" is used five times and the word "responsible" is used twice. Therefore, we use those terms in other areas of this legislation. It is not really about those definitions because we use them in other aspects of the Bill. That argument does not hold water.
I do not understand why we are not including the phrase "fostering ethical and responsible AI innovation and literacy". That seems fundamental to the role and responsibility of the office. I find it hard to understand why that commitment is not included so that we are pursuing reasonable, balanced AI regulation that focuses on human rights.

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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/2026-07-09/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:11+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-09