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 The Dublin Inquirer has done incredibly important reporting on that. The national usage Uisce Éireann was suggesting is less than how much one individual data centre reported for itself so the figures are all up on this. These are factors. This relates to AI systems, high risk systems that could result in massive energy consumption. There is also the question of AI systems related to critical infrastructure in paragraph 2, which might involve the supply of water, gas, heating, electricity or the management or operation of what is called critical digital infrastructure. Paragraph 5 could include AI systems being given access to essential public and private services and infrastructure in their testing phase. It could include things like eligibility for healthcare services and categorising responding to emergency calls. These areas are really not areas for testing or experimenting. The Paris Agreement and an environmental assessment in terms of doing things, is it worth doing it and is the cost worth what we get, needs to be part of the calculation, in general, in regard to AI, but particularly to the testing and experimenting related to AI in the real world. I am coming to near the end. Amendment No. 60 seeks to provide for an ethical review of the testing of high-risk AI systems on an annual basis. There are obvious ethical concerns arising from this section. It is important we have a clear sight of the concerns and our amendment provides to undertake an annual ethical review of the operation of this section of the Bill. I do not think annual is too much in the context of an area that is so fact moving and when the risks are so clearly delineated. It reflects Article 60, paragraph 3 of the EU AI Act, which states: The testing of high-risk AI systems in real world conditions under this Article shall be without prejudice to any ethical review that is required by Union or national law. When the Minister of State states we are just implementing what is there, there are a lot of choices. There are choices around excluding vulnerable groups, like I mentioned earlier. There are choices around particular categories of data. There are choices around the ethical framework and I ask the Minister of State to choose to have an ethical review on an annual basis. One of the listed functions of the office in the Bill is AI innovation. I am moving to a slightly different note. My last amendment, No. 63, is in this grouping. This amendment, No. 63, seeks to shorten the maximum timeframe within which a provider must comply with a request by a market surveillance authority to suspend, terminate or modify the testing of a high-risk AI system in the real world. As the Bill is drafted, providers are provided with a 14-day period within which the suspension, termination or modification of the testing should take effect. Bear in mind, that is 14 days after alarm bells have been raised, in which they can continue to experiment in the real world, on real people, on real infrastructure within real public service systems. When the market surveillance authority says "stop", they need to stop. They should not get two more weeks. Article 76 of the AI Act sets out the powers of the market surveillance authority to ensure compliance and to say they can suspend or terminate testing if serious incidents occur or if the conditions of the testing permissions are not met by the provider. When those two things happen, the off-switch has to happen right away. This is a time when the State needs to move fast. It is positive that there is a mechanism to allow the suspension, termination and modification but we have put seven days in the amendment. I personally think it should be, not later than seven days. Two weeks is simply too long. Not only does it allow the damage to continue but it also creates the space for a spin to be generated around the damage, for the minimising of it and the potential removal of relevant evidence. It is not okay. --- 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