Regulation of Artificial Intelligence Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-30
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George Lawlor (LAB), Wexford

Amendment No. 5 speaks to the promotion of responsible adoption of AI systems in workplaces and protects the legal rights of employees. A lot of people out there are very fearful of AI and what it will bring to the workplace. The amendment is geared towards the protection of existing employees and ensuring nothing we are doing through the establishment of this office will undermine that. It also calls for monitoring the use of AI systems for the purpose of workforce management, not to hand over AI to management to undermine existing workers and their rights and obligations under this Act and under artificial intelligence regulations.
We also need to encourage and support the provision of training, reskilling and upskilling opportunities. This is vital in the current climate. There is a lot of fear among the entire population as to where AI is going in relation to the rights of workers and how this might be undermined unless there is strong legislation in place to ensure their rights and opportunities are strengthened.
Amendment No. 7 speaks to our national climate objectives. We have already seen legislation pushed through this evening that abandoned a lot of our climate objectives. This amendment seeks to insert the following subsection:
the need to ensure that the development and adoption of AI systems in the State is consistent with the national climate objective within the meaning of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015, having particular regard to the energy consumption and environmental impact associated with the training, operation and deployment of AI systems.
We all know the impact AI will have on energy and water consumption in particular. We have to be cognisant of that in this legislation. I ask the Minister of State to do that.

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Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:06+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-30