Regulation of Artificial Intelligence Bill 2026: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-15 ============================================================ Alice-Mary Higgins (IND), National University of Ireland I do not really see how section 62 satisfies our requirement in respect of fundamental rights impact assessments for high-risk AI systems because the section deals with the reporting of infringements and the protection of reporting persons. I am not sure if I perhaps misheard what the Minister of State was implying. The complaints mechanisms are set out at that point. The fact is that Ireland's record on enforcement applied to large technology companies is relatively poor. This has been criticised and called out by others in Europe. It has led to situations where European data protection authorities have had to step in when they felt it was not being addressed properly in Ireland. I am passionate about GDPR. There are key parallels and predecessors here that need to be looked at. What has led to actual rights and the actual enforcement are the really important citizens' rights, public rights and rights of the individual that were set out under GDPR. These were largely championed by individuals. It has been civil society groups and groups like Digital Rights Ireland. It has been those who have taken class action cases against big tech companies. It has been those who have highlighted and publicly scandalised their own experiences of the inadequacy and sometimes abusive practices they have encountered in their engagements with big tech companies. What has driven action in this area has been civil society and public champions. Sadly, it is not the case that Ireland has, through its governance mechanisms, led the way in zealously delivering the highest possible standards and interpretations in respect of those regulations. Now we have the new AI regulations. Ireland is in a core position, yet again, because so many of the largest tech companies are located here. The public got on board. It was a glorious moment in terms of GDPR because there was a new recognition of rights. It was like this incredible push-back against the idea that people are just the subjects, the serfs or chattel, to be pushed through a commercial model. It said that people own their own data. The public embraced that and said what they were not happy with. They led in this regard. That is what gave meaning to GDPR. That is what led the position where, instead of having to opt out, people need to opt in to cookies. All of these were steps take by those who championed the issues. If we go into this new AI era, which is seeking to embed itself in everything and everywhere, where there are countless new factors even recognised as high risk and if we do not have transparency about the problems and issues and we do not have transparency as to how fundamental rights are being implemented and enforced and checked, it will not only be very worrying in terms of the outcomes for the public, but it will also be deeply disempowering for the public, who have been the actual watchdogs in terms of rights and standards. It is the public who started shouting about Grok. It is the public who led the way on opt-outs and opt-ins. It is the public who said certain kinds of data are personal, that they can see that it is personal and how it is being used. This has happened before. Now we have this new system, this register, and on the idea of it not being public-facing, the Minister of State said it might happen in time, but we are at a crunch point now. This is when the massive scale-up is happening and the gazillion new data centres, which, absurdly, are being allowed to use up all of our electricity and water to such a crazy degree, are happening. It is a time when Ireland is embedding itself in this with a huge vulnerability. This is a time when AI is at a make-or-break, with many people pointing to the emperor's new clothes factor in that it is not very financially secure, but we are looking at embedding it, when wild risks are being taken and when we have seen from some of the companies that are championing and leading on AI intensely anti-democratic language and direct statements of their intentions to interfere in democracy. The very minimum we can do is ensure the public gets to see what is happening. I do not think it is okay to leave it on the basis of we will work with the industry for a while and, down the line, we will see if there are certain elements we might make accessible to the public in a way that protects confidentiality and commercial and data interests. Why are commercial interests being given such a high rating in this? There are protections on certain commercial interests but we can choose what we are going to prioritise here, and I say to the Minister, who is someone I really respect and who I wish was in a different brief, frankly, because I know she comes with a strong community and cultural background that is about society, that we need to not make this be a black box. We cannot have it that the AI register is just something that happens as a little conversation between the regulator-promoter and the companies. It is dangerous and anti-democratic. It is going to lead to regulation that does not work and it is going to lead to corporate capture to an even greater degree. When the scandals break, if it turns out that the red flags for those scandals were sitting inside this register and not being looked at or examined, that is going to be a reckoning as well. I urge the Minister of State to say that this is public information and, even if she does not accept the full wording of our amendment that any of such information that there is would be publicly accessible, which is what I want to see, then at a minimum, that any information that is in the public interest should be made accessible. As we are having Committee and Report Stages rammed together, we cannot go into that nuance, but that would allow you to balance your commercial or other data protection interests while any such information that is going into this register that is considered to be in the public interest would be made publicly available. We have looked for full public accessibility. I urge the Minister of State, in her role, to think about even a compromise in terms of information that is in the public interest, because otherwise we are in a dangerous space. The Minister of State said it is complementing a wider transparency framework, but this is where the core information is going to be. That piece about fundamental rights impact assessments at a minimum needs to be looked at. People's digital rights are one thing, as is the general data protection regulation, GDPR, but there are also those core fundamental rights and the human rights we have. Article 27 of the AI regulation refers to "deploying a high-risk system" and that public body deployers "shall perform an assessment of the impact on fundamental rights that the use of such system may produce". That is a process that has to happen in respect of fundamental rights. That is required under the regulation. Why would we not share that information? In what realm would we not share the fundamental rights impact assessment? If I said the information generally on the register that is in the public interest should be shared in the public interest, I cannot see any argument why the assessments done in relation to fundamental rights and their impact on them would not be in the public interest to share. If we are going to say commercial sensitivity trumps clarity on the impact on fundamental rights, done in an objective way in respect of this assessment, then I do not accept that and I do not think the public will accept it. I am saying to the Minister of State to look to the register, look to making transparent and available not just the bits it wants to let her know about but anything that is in the public interest, and look to that question of the impact assessments on fundamental rights. These are public bodies that are meant to serve the public. They are meant to be doing this assessment for the public in relation to these systems and that information regarding the assessment of the impact on the fundamental rights of the public should be public. If companies have something to hide in that, then they need to change their practices. One of the first solid measures we can do to ensure companies start delivering on fundamental rights is that, if they know if they come out poorly from an assessment, everyone is going to see. Maybe that will get taken up legally or politically in Ireland but maybe it will get taken up in one of the many other countries where the companies headquartered here operate. It would allow individuals in France, Luxembourg and Sweden to point to a really problematic practice that one of these big companies has which was found in a fundamental rights impact assessment to be a problem for fundamental rights and maybe take it up locally. That is the duty of Ireland. I have listened so many times to the people who want us to spend a bazillion on arms and all the rest of that hype and playing our part when it comes to cyberattacks, etc. This is it; this is the cybersecurity bit; it is here. The fundamental role of Ireland stepping up is not us buying a couple of tanks or joining in any wars of interest. Where we step up for our colleagues in Europe is by taking our role as the centrepoint for digital and AI regulation really seriously and dealing with it transparently. I will leave that with the Minister of State. She said these Bills will be back. It is before the summer now. I genuinely appeal to her to show leadership on this not just for Ireland but for all of our colleagues across Europe. --- 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/2026-07-15/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:52:16+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-07-15