Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) (Amendment) Bill 2025: Report and Final Stages
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-13
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Matt Carthy (SF), Cavan-Monaghan

We are dealing with a Bill that would, for the first time, allow what we all hope would be the appropriate use of biometric recognition technology in order to assist our police force in tackling serious crime, security matters and missing persons cases. Most people in the House recognise that, for those serious issues, there is a need for the use of that type of technology. However, there is also a consensus that we have to ensure appropriate safeguards because we have seen how this type of technology has been abused internationally. A number of states have used this type of technology for aggressive reasons. They have used it to either spy on their own citizenry on an ongoing basis or pursue war crimes and breaches of international law.
To be clear, with this amendment, we are just putting in one of the necessary safeguards to ensure that we do not allow technology to be supplied by companies that collaborate with states engaged in war crimes or genocide. As I said at the outset, that should not even be up for debate. I thought the Minister would have welcomed and adopted that. My real concern is that while the Minister has said, as he did on Committee Stage, that this is something he will give consideration to by way of regulation, he has not assured this House that he will be pursuing that route. It is for those reasons that I will be pressing the amendment.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-13/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:03+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-13