Regulation of Artificial Intelligence Bill 2026: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-15
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Patricia Stephenson (SD), Labour Panel

Yes. I will speak to amendment No. 61, which is linked to what Senator Higgins was just referring to on the 14-day notice period for revocation or amendment of a real world testing permit for high risk systems. I will add to what Senator Higgins discussed. The idea there would be a 14-day window through which a harmful, high-risk system is allowed to continue implementing or using the practice that has been found to break some sort of regulation is nuts. The Grok AI scandal is a perfect, recent example of how the provider could maintain that system for a 14-day period even though we know it had harmful impacts on society. That is why my amendment No. 61 talks about how it "shall come into provisional effect immediately unless otherwise specified in the notice provided to the provider", so the provider will take the system off immediately, as soon as they possibly can, due to the severe risk they pose. A fair appeals process can still be included within that. The provider can appeal and if the appeal finds the testing is not damaging then the provider can reinstate that. If there are any concerns around any high-risk systems being implemented that have the potential to endanger society they should be immediately removed for the period during which that appeal takes place. The outcome of the appeal might that in fact it is a high-risk system and it should be taken down and therefore, we would have been correct in doing so immediately.
Amendment No. 57 provides that:
In making a determination on permitting or refusing to permit testing, the market surveillance authority shall have due regard for the potential impact of this testing on the fundamental rights of those exposed to the high risk system.
The "fundamental rights of those exposed to the high risk system" is really the main point here. We are legally and statutorily obligating companies that are engaging in high-risk systems while performing real world testing - us, existing in the real world and not in a safe sandbox, as I know has been discussed earlier - to consider fundamental rights. I suspect the Minister of State might say the fundamental rights of any individual will be protected through other instruments or statutes, perhaps through the EU AI Act itself, but given the potential risk to individuals - again I will use Grok since it was such a recent and major example - the potential for people's fundamental rights to be undermined with these high risk systems is endless. Therefore, putting that on a statutory footing really does matter. We can point to other directives or constitutional rights and all of these things but this is such new legislation that, by not including that we are inadvertently, or advertently, sending the message that fundamental rights are not as important as the testing of these products.

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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