Patricia Stephenson
Labour Panel · Social Democrats · Ireland
“A number of us on this side of the House have concerns around what this is opening us up to. We are concerned that we do not have the correct protections and safeguards in place to ensure that the supply will be State-owned and State-led because it is not included in the definitions in the legislation.”
“The world is literally on fire in some places. We have a forest fire in Ireland for the first time in years perhaps. I know we sometimes have them in the Mourne Mountains in the North. This is cause for concern, not just for future generations but for us today.”
“I thank the Minister for coming in. This is a really positive step. I am delighted she is pushing it forward. By and large, the oral contraceptive is incredibly safe. A lot of well-studied medicines are available. Over-the-counter oral contraception has been recommended by the WHO since 2019.”
“I move amendment No. 1: In page 7, between lines 22 and 23, to insert the following: “ “emergency” means a situation where the State is experiencing a significant and protracted physical disruption of gas supply, or other catastrophic deterioration of the supply situation, and where— (a) all relevant market-based measures have been fully…”
“The Department has stated this facility "will provide the resilience required to support our energy transition" and that "the reserve will only be used in genuine emergencies", yet there is no definition in this Bill of what the Government means by an emergency and when that would apply.”
“We also have to be mindful of the burden it will place on pharmacists without the correct resourcing for pharmacies to deliver the scheme to safeguard against them withdrawing from this or any future scheme simply because they feel they do not have the resources to deliver it in a timely manner.”
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“I find it hard to understand why that commitment is not included so that we are pursuing reasonable, balanced AI regulation that focuses on human rights.”
“Talking about an ethical responsibility is crucial when we want to frame the role and responsibility of that office as human rights-centric. In the Dáil, the Minister of State said that there are no definitions of the terms "ethics" and "responsibility" in the legislation. However, the word "ethics" is used five times and the word "responsible" is used twice. Therefore, we use those terms in other areas of this legislation. It is not really about those definitions because we use them in other aspects of the Bill. That argument does not hold water. I do not understand why we are not including the phrase "fostering ethical and responsible AI innovation and literacy". That seems fundamental to the role and responsibility of the office.”
“Surely, it is a given that we include that kind of language because of the scale of the danger AI poses and the concerns to which it gives rise. The Minister of State said that "promoting and fostering AI innovation and literacy" is sufficiently broad and that the wider framework of the AI Act already ensures that "innovation is pursued in a manner that is human-centric, trustworthy and [proactive] of fundamental rights". I got that quote from the Official Report of the proceedings of the Dáil. I do not necessarily agree with the Minister of State. If we want to emphasise the role of the regulatory framework as protecting fundamental rights, then it must be spelt out within the legislation and explicitly defined in the remit of the office to which this Bill relates.”
“I move amendment No. 3: In page 13, line 34, after “foster” to insert “ethical and responsible”. My colleagues' amendment No. 4 is the same. The Bill includes the word "foster" and we would like it to include "ethical and responsible". The Minister of State will be familiar with this amendment from the Dáil because my colleague, Deputy Gibney, tabled it. I do not know why we are not pursuing it. This seems like a straightforward amendment. It seeks to strengthen the Bill such that when we talk about fostering AI innovation and literacy, we are talking about fostering ethical and responsible AI innovation and literacy. The Minister of State might outline why she does not think it is appropriate to talk about ethical and responsible AI innovation and literacy.”
“This point is not unique to this directive, as it happens all of the time, but we cannot play our constitutional role as elected parliamentarians properly when we have limited time to scrutinise legislation. I know that we are near the deadline, but if we could in future put in a time buffer to permit us to scrutinise legislation properly, then it would be much easier.”
“The Minister of State brought up the August deadline. We have actually had two years to transpose the directive, so we are now on a deadline, but the Bill could have been introduced earlier. I know that the two-year period was for officials to work on transposing the legislation, but the problem is that if we only get the legislation delivered at the end of term weeks before the transposition deadline, it makes matters difficult. I know that the officials do huge amounts of work in all Departments when it comes to the transposition of complex EU directives, but it is our job as elected representatives and parliamentarians to scrutinise legislation.”
“When it comes to the establishment of the board, amendment No. 8 is around restructuring board appointments to give better independence to ensure it is not within the gift of any one Minister to appoint the first board or to appoint the first CEO with the normal process and oversight for a full CEO and board term. I do not know why the process for appointments is not currently grounded in the legislation. These amendments are all about grounding that in the legislation as it stands because it has not been written that way.”
“I know that within the legislation there is a carve-out to state that the Minister cannot provide direction specifically when it comes to regulation, but that protection does not exist when it comes to the issues of literacy, innovation and all the other functions that the office carries out. That undermines the independence piece. If the Minister is able to write to the office providing guidance on direction of travel, I do not know how we can say that is normal and leads to the independence of an independent State body. We have models where it works. We have the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, IHREC, Coimisiún na Meán and the Data Protection Commission, DPC. They are independent in how they were created for good reason and we are just not doing that here and I do not know why.”
“2 relates to the Public Appointments Service, PAS. Setting a high standard includes using the PAS as a tool for hiring and making sure that it is distinct from the Department itself. That is currently not guaranteed within the existing legislation. This amendment would ensure that no appointments are made at the behest of any one Minister and ensures transparency. I do not think that having direct appointments in any situation is tantamount to good managerial or governance practices. The Minister's ability to give written direction to the office as it currently stands is a violation of the independence of the office. The idea is that the office will take action via ministerial direction and I would like to ensure that is not possible.”
“I move amendment No. 2: In page 11, between lines 15 and 16, to insert the following: " "Service" means the Public Appointments Service;". My amendments within this group largely deal with the establishment of the board. The Minister of State will have seen these amendments when my colleague, Deputy Gibney, submitted them in the Dáil. They are about governance and trying to strengthen the governance of the AI office to ensure its independence. Under the current drafting of this legislation, I do not think there is independence. We talked about this issue last week and the Minister of State talked about it in her response. However, I do not believe that we have sufficient protections and safeguards around the independence of the office. There are multiple areas where the independence is undermined in the legislation. Amendment No.”
“Abu Safiya, to press for accountability for these disturbing allegations and images we are seeing, to do everything in our power to ensure his release, and to advocate for all medical staff in a humanitarian context who are delivering crucial aid but are under huge attack. We have seen medical staff actively targeted and murdered in Gaza and it is just unfathomable that we can allow this to continue without adding our words to it.”
“He is so physically weakened that he struggles to breathe and is showing severe signs of trauma and psychological distress. He is being denied adequate food, clean water and medical attention. He now fears he is going to die in custody. It is just sadistic and unconscionable how he has been treated. No one should be subjected to torture or cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, never mind a doctor who has dedicated himself to saving lives in the face of such human suffering. I would like us to appeal to the Department and Minister for foreign affairs to outline what diplomatic and urgent action Ireland can take to secure independent medical access for Dr.”
“This is the end." These are the words of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya to his lawyer just days ago. He asked his lawyers to rouse the world, and many have. I am adding my voice here today. He was the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital and he is the doctor who refused to abandon his patients in Gaza while hospitals were under attack. Even after he lost his own son, he stayed because he believed his duty was to serve the sick and injured. His courage is a symbol of humanity in the darkest of times. Now, reports and videos show him in detention and they are really difficult to comprehend. He is completely unrecognisable, a man who has been beaten repeatedly - beaten with hammers and batons, and left with injuries across his face, head and body - and he is being denied medical care.”
“How can we expect women, survivors and victims of domestic violence to flee to safety when the appropriate supports are simply not there? We need to explore giving An Garda Síochána the power to remove abusers from the home rather than the victim survivors. We talk about having a zero-tolerance approach to domestic, sexual and gender-based violence, but counselling notes will still be available in the courts. Toxic, misogynistic online culture is still rife, as are toxic algorithms, perpetuating a normalised culture of violence against women. That is where we are. Instead of going forward, we are going backwards. I also want to raise the issue of a Palestinian doctor in Israeli detention who has been there for 559 days with no charges. "This is the last time you'll see me ... They brought me here to kill me ...”
“I want to raise the issue of the number of women who have been killed since the beginning of this year. It is disturbing and devastating that eight women have now been killed in Ireland, which is higher than the total number of women killed in 2025. Forty women have been killed in Ireland since the tragic killing of Ashling Murphy in 2022. Women do not feel that they can flee. There are no appropriate housing supports. We still have many counties without a refuge. Even when women are in a refuge, where is the long-term suitable accommodation for them? Accessing justice remains incredibly difficult. The challenge of the legal aid threshold is too high when financial abuse becomes part of domestic abuse. The specialist support services that are out there are stretched.”
“Can we really say that hand on heart when 70% of the trade is with services? Gaza is rubble. The Palestinian people are being displaced by the hundreds of thousands. Their land is being violently taken by the Israeli-sanctioned violent settler regime and we are giving a pittance with this legislation. Yes, EU collective action would be fabulous. Over 70,000 people are dead and we have not succeeded in EU collective action. Let us set a high bar and include services. There is still time for us to stop this in its tracks and produce good legislation that we can all be proud of and other countries will copy, not the lowest standard possible.”
“What I am deeply worried about is that we are effectively signalling to the EU Commission that when, as I imagine it will, presents proposals down the line for an EU-wide ban on trade with the occupied territory in Palestine, we are basically saying that we are fine if we just go with goods. That is what we are saying. We are saying that we are okay with that. We are signalling a low bar rather than the high bar that we could be setting. I want to mention Spain. It has come up in other contexts. Hundreds and hundreds of advertisements have been taken down since December, not just a handful, it is hundreds. We have that evidence and we can talk about it at Committee Stage next week. Hand on heart, do we believe this Bill is doing everything in our power to stop the continuation of the Israeli illegal settlements in occupied Palestine?”
“I refer to the risk into which that places us by acknowledging that we are passing legislation that does not meet our obligations. That is happening when international laws are under threat from all sides. We talk about international law losing its credibility or being weakened. International law is stuff that is written down. It is standards. International law, in and of itself, is not failing. Leaders are failing to uphold it and we will be participating in the degradation of international law with this legislation. We are setting a ceiling. We are not being ambitious or trying to create a new brilliant norm that other countries will follow.”
“It is even in the Long Title of the Bill, which refers to it being an Act to provide compliance by the State with international legal obligations, but we are not doing that. I do not really believe Ireland can keep talking about being a defender of international law and a champion of international law when this Bill does not meet our most basic obligations and our most minimum standards. I would like to know if the Government has considered the breach to our own Constitution that this watered-down Bill might represent, specifically Article 29.3 which commits Ireland to respecting international law as its rule of conduct in its relations with other states. With that in mind, we have the Minister on record saying that this Bill only brings us into partial compliance. I find that absolutely incredible.”
“We heard from Professor Panos Koutrakos and Professor Takis Tridimas that public policy provides a derogation not only from the free movement of goods but also the freedom to provide services. There is no basis and no distinction in international law. I do not know why we are tying ourselves in knots or why the Government is tying itself in knots trying to make this distinction. I find it astonishing that we are having this conversation and having to fight for services to be included. There is a genocide taking place and we are having these arbitrary discussions around types of trade while we are knowingly pursuing legislation that will not bring us into compliance with international law.”
“The Department and the Minister, Deputy McEntee, have brazenly admitted that we do not comply. In fact, in the Minister's contributions today she talked about contributing to Ireland's efforts to uphold and comply with international law. It is just not the case. EU legal experts in the committee said that the EU courts have said that the law must be read in a way that allows member states like Ireland to meet our international obligations. That is the EU court's ruling when it comes to international law. EU public policy exemption extends to all trade. There is no distinction in international law around goods and services. That is an arbitrary distinction the Government is presenting us with.”
“What message does it send to Palestinians? "We have seen the oppression and slaughter of your people, the genocide you have experienced and the violent attacks on your land. We are very sorry but we are actually not willing to meet our own obligations under international law." Let us be clear: the Bill here today with the exclusion of services will not bring us into compliance with our own obligations. It is only partially compliant with the ICJ opinion. Yesterday in the Dáil the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, mentioned that this Bill is not in breach of international law. I think he mentioned that we fulfil those obligations according to the EU. I reject that. The Department and the Minister, Deputy McEntee, have said that we are not complying with international law.”
“We have seen over 73,000 Palestinian men, women and children slaughtered. Of them, 20,000 were children. More than 1,000 people have been slaughtered since the pretend ceasefire. We read the independent report on the violence committed specifically against children by the Israel Defense Forces, IDF, including the horrifying story of a ten-day old baby shot in the head while being held in its mother's arms, breast-feeding. I do not claim any monopoly on empathy. We often hear from Government members that they think the Opposition feels it has some sort of monopoly on empathy. I do not think that but, in the face of all the horror and in the face of endless impunity for the Israeli State, I cannot fathom why the Government is choosing the weakest form of this legislation. I really think it is shameful.”
“I cannot stand here and congratulate the Government on finally catching up with the rest of the country. The Minister said that people think the Bill does not go far enough. It is not that people think the Bill does not go far enough; international law states that the Bill does not go far enough. The Government has been dragged into taking action by the public rather than showing real active and proactive leadership. I commend Senator Black on the Bill and I commend Mr. Conor O'Neill for all the work they have done on that. It was passed in 2019 and, seven years later, we are looking at this watered-down version that is a husk of the original legislation. At the same time as the Government has been slow-walking the occupied territories Bill, we have watched a genocide being live-streamed to our mobile phones.”
“Watching Europe on fire, and the heat in our own communities, I feel a degree of existential dread about the future of the climate, of our environment and of our humanity in the current context we are seeing. I cannot fathom why we would not have any protections in this legislation if the Government also felt any concern about the climate.”
“It is the public who have to foot the bill for these data centres and it is again the public who will have to foot the bill for the €1 billion LNG facility, which could actually be used by private companies for their profits, because there are no protections in this legislation to stop that from happening. I do not see public or community buy-in for this approach. Why has the Government decided to steamroll any attempt to include safeguards for the public interest and the environment in this legislation with the promise that we will get protections further down the line instead of just putting them into the Bill in the first place? There has not been sufficient transparency and sufficient consideration has not been given to the alternative approaches to account for our national climate objectives while the world burns.”
“The reason we apparently need this €1 billion LNG facility is to safeguard supply, but we have large energy users, like data centres, that have proliferated in the State, driving up prices for consumers. The environmental impact of these resource-intensive data centres is stark and their energy needs are outpacing the development of new renewables. According to new figures from the Central Statistics Office, CSO, for 2025, data centres now account for almost one quarter of Irish electricity usage, and this is set to increase to one third by 2030. The stark reality is that we are now a cautionary tale for the rest of the world in how not to manage energy. We heard this from the UN report. The public did not sign up for this or for having the highest energy prices in Europe.”
“If it is going to be State led and not for commercial use, then the Government should just put it into the legislation. It is quite simple. We can then trust that the protections exist. We can be forgiven for not trusting that this will be provided for at a later stage, given that there has been a complete lack of transparency thus far and we have seen the rollback of key climate provisions. It is hard, therefore, to have any faith that these protections will somehow manifest in legislation down the line. The Bill speaks to a broader mismanagement of demand of our energy system, with the Government consistently prioritising the needs of energy-hungry big business and corporate interests over those of ordinary households and our environment.”
“Despite the scale of climate catastrophe we are hurtling towards, the Government appears to be the victim of a sort of climate fatigue or, perhaps, cognitive dissonance, with its head in the sand pretending it is not happening. Not only has the Government conceded that we are not even going to get close to meeting our 2030 emissions reduction targets, but we continue to see it rowing back on climate ambition, not least through the disapplication of climate laws and biodiversity protections when they are inconvenient, which we seem to be doing with this legislation. I feel that the Government's failure to explicitly state in this legislation that the LNG terminal will be State owned and State led and not for commercial use is taking us for fools.”
“Vulnerable people are dying as a consequence of the climate change we are seeing. Scientists tell us that this is direct result of a climate crisis driven by the burning of fossil fuels, yet here we are being asked to sanction a €1 billion investment in LNG. This is, quite frankly, a betrayal of our children and the generation that will come after them. There are warnings that we cannot reverse this and that we will see an increased frequency and intensity of heatwaves in Europe, which is warming at more than twice the global average. Within the next decade, global temperatures will likely increase by more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. This is the critical tipping point identified in the 2015 Paris Agreement that will have devastating consequences for humanity.”
“The Government's handling of this legislation has been appalling. Not only is it preposterous that a Bill that will see almost €1 billion being invested in fossil fuel infrastructure is being rammed through the legislative process with little opportunity for proper scrutiny; it is also ludicrous that we are even debating such investment in fossil fuels in view of the scale of the climate calamity we are facing. This is not a future problem; it is a problem of today. The climate crisis and climate breakdown are very much on our doorstep. Anyone who goes out into nature can see that at first hand. As we speak, Europe is quite literally being scorched by extreme temperatures, which is wreaking havoc on healthcare, energy and transport systems. Schools are closing.”
“I cannot fathom that when we talk about tackling gender-based violence and our zero-tolerance strategy, this will continue to prevent women and all victims of sexual violence from coming forward. They believe they do not have protection. They do not have the security and protection of knowing that their counselling notes will not be used. There is no guarantee.”
“The government cannot claim to support mental health while allowing trauma symptoms to be weaponised. Like it or dislike it. Disagree with me. Disagree with Paula. The facts are that people going through the courts will, after the enactment of this legislation, continue to have their counselling notes used as evidence of what happened to them, what horrific thing was done to their body, the violation and trespass against them and their physical personhood. We have to vote on that today. It is deeply uncomfortable for me that, after all of the public debate, we will still find that situation, and it will still go ahead. I cannot fathom how we can allow this to happen.”
“In the end, as we know, this man was convicted of heinous crimes. I would like to quote Paula. There will be a bit of repetition here, but I think it is important. She has given me permission to use her testimony. Paula said: “The notes that were used were of no reference to the actual rape but fragments of my new broken existence”. That is what happens to memory. That is what happens to identity and to the sense of self after something like that happens. They took those fragments and they were “used by the [defence team] to discredit me on the stand as a woman, a partner and a mother.” The following is one of the most chilling parts of Paula's testimony: The violence I experienced didn’t end with the assault. I was mentally violated against but this time by our Irish justice system.”
“We cannot fix the system, or we will not fix it. We saw a textbook example of how counselling notes are routinely deployed by defence teams to undermine the credibility of survivors of domestic, sexual and gender-based violence in the recent child sex abuse trial of Jeffrey Donaldson in the North. I acknowledge that it is a different jurisdiction, but it was a public case and is relevant to how the interpretation of memory is used to discredit victims. Complainant A in that trial had her counselling notes used against her when her counsellor had indicated in her notes that her memory was really poor or bad, as is the case with body trauma. The defence team cross-examined the victim-survivor and tried to undermine her testimony on the basis of the counselling notes. That is completely barbaric.”
“They will be following the news that comes out of this debate and how this Bill goes. It is going to have an even more chilling impact on survivors who are fearful of coming forward. They will say that the State did not improve it. The State did not listen. They fought really hard. They bared themselves publicly, which no victim should have to do. It takes really strong people to come forward and share their most powerful personal testimonies on the public record at committees. These testimonies exist for all time. We see the bravery and strength that takes, but we still will not have done anything for them. We will not have improved the system in any meaningful way. What message does that send to women and all survivors of sexual and gender-based violence? We heard you. We saw you cry. We saw you bare your souls. We are sorry.”
“The compromise that DRCC and Labour put together in the Dáil and Seanad has not been met. That was a compromise. Even with that, we are not there. We will continue to see deeply retraumatising practices that have a chilling impact on victim-survivors and stop them from seeking justice. It is a genuine barrier to accessing justice for sexual violence survivors. It is also at odds with our obligations under the Istanbul Convention with regard to improving access to justice for survivors of domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. This will not be doing that. Because we have had this really important public debate in recent years and months, driven by survivors, I might add, and because of all the hard work that survivors have done, it is also now in the ether. People will be following this.”
“There is a plethora of research that describes how trauma impacts memory, and in particular, body trauma, the physical trespass that has been done to someone's body. When somebody has been sexually abused or raped, body trauma has a specific impact on memory and timelines. Everyone here knows that. I am preaching to the converted. This practice of someone's therapeutic counselling notes, which are there as a tool to help them build and recover, being used as some form of evidence is nonsense. It is not a CCTV camera. It is not testimony by a witness. It is someone's personal, most intimate conversation with someone that is designed to support them. The Minister knows this. That is why it is so hard to understand why we have a situation where this legislation simply is not strong enough.”
“To see that person not face any retribution for the crime that was done against them, the trespass that was done against them, the physical trespass against their body, for example, can block their ability to pursue wellness in the future and develop their health again. We see that a lot in historical cases, where people go back decades later because they have not been able to move on without seeking that justice. The idea that third-hand accounts written subjectively by a therapist, which are simply that therapist's interpretation of what the victim-survivor has recounted to them, can be used as some sort of legitimate form of evidence is mind-boggling. Counselling notes are an interpretation. They are recounting a horrendously traumatic event or events.”
“We have a situation whereby survivors of sexual violence are choosing not to seek counselling. They are choosing to opt out of therapy on foot of a fear that their most intimate discussions with a clinical therapist will be used against them. The DRCC has documented this. We are creating a dichotomy or a binary between getting therapy and getting justice. Getting justice is part of the therapeutic process as well. They are actually intertwined, so we cannot create a binary. For many people, if they have not gone through the justice process, if they have not held their perpetrator to account, then they cannot pursue the healing process fully.”
“No survivor of sexual assault, rape or sexual abuse who has had the courage to seek counselling should ever have to fear that their words could be twisted and used against them should they seek to pursue justice through the courts. We know that for many survivors of rape and sexual violence, counselling is a crucial and essential part of their recovery. It is not optional; it is where they begin to process trauma, rebuild trust and regain control of their lives. How can we stand over a system where these notes can be weaponised, as they routinely are, not in the interests of a fair trial, but solely to discredit the system? It is cruel and is symptomatic of an ingrained misogyny and a system that is stacked against sexual violence survivors every step of the way.”
“We are creating a system whereby people do not want to come forward. They are scared of doing so because they are scared of the implications. While front-line organisations like the DRCC report an unprecedented surge in demand for services, including therapy services, the figures show that we are seeing a potential decline in the willingness of victims to report offences. The horrifying reality is that the adversarial justice system clearly does not command the confidence of sexual assault victims and clearly discourages them from seeking justice. We have a system within which the forced disclosure of deeply personal counselling notes is one of a litany of obstacles that survivors must face.”
“In Ireland, fewer than 5% of people who have experienced sexual violence ever report it to the Garda, which highlights a fundamental lack of trust in the system. It is for good reason that many survivors do not trust the system. Last week, the Central Statistics Office, CSO, published troubling new figures that show a 15% drop in the number of recorded sexual criminal incidents in the year to quarter 1 of 2026 compared with quarter 1 of 2025. As the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, DRCC, has noted, this extremely concerning trend suggests not that sexual violence rates are decreasing - we know that is not the case, and we have plenty of reports that contacts are up in the past year, which is deeply concerning in itself - but that people are becoming reluctant to seek justice. It is there in black and white.”
“I do not believe the provisions the Minister outlined in the Bill will do anything to protect survivors from the cruel and barbaric practice of their intimate counselling notes being weaponised against them at trial. I want to express my opposition and the emphatic opposition of the Social Democrats to the disclosure regime proposed in the Bill. It does not keep the promises or meet the commitments the Minister made in February of this year. Survivors deserve the strongest possible protection and the regime proposed does not provide it, simple as. Contrary to what the Minister has repeatedly promised to victims and survivors, the proposed regime is seriously flawed and will not prevent the practice of routine disclosure applications for counselling notes in sexual assault and abuse cases.”
“I welcome the survivors and their supporters to the Chamber. They have been following this through the Dáil and the Seanad and will, I am sure, continue to follow this issue closely. The Labour amendment that was brought in last week and co-developed with the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre was a compromise but the Minister would not meet survivors and front-line response services halfway with that amendment. For that reason, I am supporting amendment No. 27 and the other amendments calling for an all-out ban. The Government is killing the only workable solution. I will not vote against stronger protections for survivors because the Government has chosen not to meet those survivors halfway.”
“If we do not have a mechanism by which vulnerable groups can seek to understand an explanation for an AI decision in an automated process at government level or in the private sector, we are serving to emphasise the further marginalisation of those communities. That is really crucial. It may be in the Bill, and I did not see it, but that just points to the fact that we have not had proper time to meaningfully scrutinise this legislation. If we want to talk about being at the centre of EU excellence and digital regulation, we have to take seriously meeting our obligations under the AI Act by establishing a truly independent and robust regulatory and enforcement regime.”
“Undue influence from the Minister will undermine the effectiveness of the regulatory system. How can we have an effective regulation of AI in this country when the supposedly independent State body tasked with that regulation is not permitted to comment on Government policy when asked by Members of these Houses at Oireachtas committees? I am also concerned that a key aspect of the EU directive is missing from this transposition. It is the part about vulnerable groups seeking an explanation as to why AI tools have made a specific decision. I might be wrong and perhaps it is in the legislation, but I do not think it is. There have been multiple examples of algorithmic AI decisions being made in EU countries where they are having a biased reading of the applicants, particularly in the Netherlands with child welfare cases.”
“There are concerns regarding transparency of appointments to the board and of its leadership. The Bill currently suggests that the first board and CEO will be directly appointed by the Minister for enterprise with little reference to any binding recommendations from the Public Appointments Service or procedures in the appointment to safeguard independence. Without independence it is actually kind of meaningless. The practice we see in the legislation does not tally with Government's assurances as to its independence, nor does the provision where the Minister can instruct the office to act on his or her direction, even with the exceptions for specific enforcement matters. This is not any particular Minister. I am talking about a Minister or a Department.”
“That is because companies see it as financially more beneficial to use an AI system they do not have to pay than upskilling a young worker. We are not facing up to the reality of this by having any meaningful strategic planning in place. I turn to the Bill itself. Serious concerns have been raised in the Dáil regarding the governance and potential independence of the new AI office. It is vital that the AI office as a regulator has the appropriate independence and resources to operate to ensure it can carry out its functions protected from potential corporate influence. The AI office is a vital piece of our new regulatory framework and must have sufficient independence from Government if it is going to be effective. Yet, there currently real deficiencies in how the Bill provides for this crucial independence.”
“My Dáil colleague Deputy Gibney highlighted that the Government's stock response to this threat from AI is to hail the potential for AI to augment the quality of jobs by performing more menial tasks. That is not the reality of what is happening. Automation has not served to improve the quality of jobs people are doing, job security, job stability or the pay and conditions of workers. People are losing jobs from AI and automation. Customer support is all bots now. There used to be humans doing these jobs. They are now done by bots. We are going to see a fundamental shift in society because of AI labour displacement. Gen Z is struggling to find jobs as companies pivot to AI, using it for entry-level jobs. Youth unemployment is worrying in Ireland, but across Europe and the world youth unemployment is skyrocketing and on the rise.”