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. 13:
In page 16, between lines 17 and 18, to insert the following:
“Conditions of office of membership of Board
14. (1) A member of the Board may at any time by notice in writing to the Government—
(a) resign from the Board, or
(b) in the case of the chairperson, with or without resigning from the Board, resign from the office of chairperson.
(2) A resignation under subsection (1) takes effect on the date specified in the notice to the Government, or on the date on which the Government receives the notice, whichever is the later.”.
All the amendments in this grouping are to do with good governance and creating more transparency and accountability so that everything is not in the hands of one individual or Department. Some of the amendments are consequential, so all of them would need to be included for them to function. I know a few of them have been debated in the Dáil as well.
The Minister may remove a member of the board from office if he or she does something wrong. I am substituting that with "the Government" may remove. It is just about creating more accountability and ensuring that more people are involved in these processes. Critically, it is exactly the same process that exists for Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, the Data Protection Commission and Coimisiún na Meán. We have these independent State bodies already. We have processes for independent State bodies. They are functioning well and instead of copying that, we are doing something different with this legislation. I do not understand why. That is why so many organisations, advocacy groups and parliamentarians are concerned that this office is, for some reason, having different standards and procedures applied that do not match the model that works and functions properly. Perhaps the Minister of State will explain why we have created a system here that is somehow different from the operating models we already have.

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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