Regulation of Artificial Intelligence Bill 2026: Committee Stage Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-09 ============================================================ Alice-Mary Higgins (IND), National University of Ireland With respect, the language the Minister of State was using from AI Act such as "human-centric" and "high level of protection" and all of that, is not in here either. The Government has taken the innovation piece and chose to put that in. The Government could have just said "a body to comply with the AI Act" but it has chosen to specify "promote and foster AI innovation" and to say it as something without the caveats that were in it. It is interesting that even within the AI Act they insert "human-centric and trustworthy ... AI, while ensuring a high level of protection" and all of that language. They did not just say "innovation": they put caveats on it but the Government is choosing to put the innovation language in without the human-centred bit. If the Government did not like the language that Senator Stephenson and I suggested to put in, a very obvious solution would be to put in the language that is in the AI Act. It must be seen as a signal that you have an AI Act that applies and you choose to pick out one aspect of it such as "innovation" and copper-fasten it under a section listed as "Functions of Office". Arguably, it is a promotion and fostering role of AI innovation. This is a complicated thing: a promotional role while at the same time the office is meant to have a regulatory role. The Government should have put in the other language as well or else leave that out and just have the functions of the office being information sharing between relevant offices, enhancing public awareness about the AI Act, dealing with competent authorities, and performing the functions and all of that. If you pick out one of the things, however, and say that the office has got to do this and then not add the other language, then there is a problem. There is a perception, matched up by the kind of language we have seen from the AI unit within the Department with its language of overarching national imperative - which is wild language - that because you put that in and because section (9)(1)(c) exists, you need to put in something else, but the Government does not want to put in "ethical". I think we could probably risk letting that be defined and letting the body define it and look to it. At least it would be looked at. We do have precedents in how it is defined. On "sustainable" we certainly have precedents in how that is defined in other legislation. In fact, there are a couple of definitions. I have argued with this definition because I do not think it is strong enough. A lot of recent legislation goes back to a definition of sustainable as being the idea that this is something which can be managed in such a way that the resources are not depleted for the next generation. I have argued for a version of sustainable in which the current generation should not be using more than our fair share. It is not actually okay that we just manage to be sustainable for the next generation in Ireland if people in Malawi and elsewhere are getting completely hit by the bad decisions we make. I have argued for a stronger definition of sustainable. However, my point is, even using the existing definition of sustainable, there are multiple precedents. I have spent hours in the definitions sections of Bills talking about this because I would like to strengthen that definition. I do not accept there is not a definition and we do not know what we would mean by it. The Minister of State said sustainable AI is in the AI Act. As there is a reference to sustainable there, what is the problem in putting it here? Presumably, the assumption is that sustainable in the functions of the office would be done in a way that reflects the way it is spoken about in the AI Act. The point is, there are things which have been chosen to be placed as front and centre that are not just about the enforcement and transposition but are specific responsibilities and the choice was made not to include human-centred or sustainability and not to place that within the functions of the body and the office; an office which already has a torn double-function. I want to establish two other points. It is notable in the section on performing its functions that the office "shall have regard to ... the objective of providing a coherent, harmonised and effective approach". This is provided for in its functions and goes back to our earlier point on biometric identification because it would immediately have on its desk a first problem. It has regard to the objective of providing a coherent, harmonised approach to the implementation of the AI regulation in the State by competent authorities, as well as the need to ensure consistent and effective governance and implementation of the AI regulation in the State. However, as we have just told the Minister of State, the Department of justice is not planning to be coherent or consistent so that will be something on the desk of this body as soon as it starts. The Minister of State has to hear the concern - and I have sat in the AI committee on numerous occasions. Maybe the idea of that committee was that it was meant to be a place where everybody says AI is amazing and it did this and that and it is so great and wonderful and look at all the money somebody is making, but actually, what is happening is that people are coming with really serious environmental, social, financial, regulatory and employment concerns. If this new body the Department is setting up is meant to be for the people, it needs to send a signal that it is going to care about those things and not just about driving innovation. The last thing I will say is the Minister has the power under section 10 to confer additional functions. If the Minister of State is not accepting our amendments today, though I will be pressing them, I want to know whether the Minister will be using his powers under conferring of additional functions to add additional functions, and if the Government wants to use that language of human-centred and everything else from the AI Act directly, that it will do so to ensure that from the get-go, this body is serving people and not just money. I say this in absolute honesty and respect. I would like to hear how the Minister of State plans to use section 10 to address the massive lacuna in the functions of the office as it is set out, because I know she is rushing the legislation through. --- 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