Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire Stáit as an mBille seo a thabhairt os comhair na Dála. I welcome this Bill and want to start by commending the Minister of State and her officials on the considerable work behind it. As a member of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Artificial Intelligence, I have watched this framework take shape and I want to state clearly that its arrival is good news. It puts our implementation of the EU AI Act on a proper statutory footing and it does so at a moment when certainty matters. The Act requires member states to have their market surveillance authorities, MSAs, in place by August 2025 and the high-risk rules apply from August this year. Businesses, public bodies and citizens have been waiting for this clarity and this Bill begins to deliver it. There is a great deal to welcome. The establishment of Oifig Intleachta Shaorga na hÉireann will give us, for the first time, a national home for AI co-ordination, literacy and public awareness. The regulatory sandbox and the real-world testing provisions in Part 3 are genuinely pro-innovation and they give smaller Irish companies and start-ups a supervised path to develop responsibly. That balance of safeguarding people while supporting innovation is exactly the balance we should strike. I also welcome the careful enforcement process in Parts 5 and 6 with proper notice, the right to make representations and appeals to District Court and confirmation of fines by the High Court. This is firm but fair and it respects due process. I welcome that the Bill names our fundamental rights bodies in section 53 with the Data Protection Commissioner, IHREC, Coimisiún na Meán and An Coimisiún Toghcháin among them, with a clear route to test high-risk systems. So, the foundations are strong and I support this Bill. I rise not to oppose it but to help strengthen it. In that collaborative spirit, there will be a need for some amendments, in my opinion, on Committee Stage and I want to set out some of those that I believe the Minister of State and her officials should be considering, and that we will consider, on Committee Stage with this House. The first concerns the office itself. Under section 9, it is provided that Oifig Intleachta Shaorga na hÉireann co-ordinates, advises and promotes but it does not investigate, inspect or enforce. Those powers rest with the designated sectoral authorities. I understand the logic of a distributed model and there is much to be said for drawing on the deep expertise of our existing regulators but there is a risk that the body the public will see as the national AI regulator will have no power of its own to act. There is a related point in section 42, which states, "The Office is designated as the single point of contact", yet Article 72 of the AI Act provides that the single point of contact is to be a market surveillance authority. I will bring an amendment to clarify the office's mandate in order that it can co-ordinate with real authority and our single point of contact will sit comfortably with Article 72. I would welcome the Minister of State's thoughts on that as well. The second concerns co-ordination. Co-operation across several authorities and the Central Bank depends, under section 63, on voluntary co-operation agreements, and section 63(8) provides that a failure to comply with such an agreement does not invalidate the exercise of any power. Co-operation is welcome, but co-ordination that rests only on goodwill can become co-ordination on paper. Again, I will bring an amendment to provide a modest backstop so that where authorities overlap or a gap appears between them, there is a clear means to resolve it rather than hoping they agree it between themselves. The third concern for resourcing is that Article 73 of the AI Act requires our competent authorities to have adequate technical, financial and human resources. The Bill provides for funding of the office but it is quieter on the capacity of the sectoral authorities that will carry out the enforcement on the ground. Again, I will bring an amendment for regular reports to this House on the resourcing of those designated authorities, which goes beyond the Minister of State's remit and, obviously, to the competent authorities. I will add one further point. Section 9 provides that the office is independent while section 11 allows the Minister to direct it. I simply ask that, as the Bill progresses, we ensure such directions can never reach the operational or investigative judgment of the office. I offer all of this in genuine partnership. This is a welcome and important Bill and I want to see it enacted and working well for the people we serve. I look forward to working with the Minister and my colleagues across the House and on the AI committee on Committee Stage, and to making the Bill even stronger.

Sentiment score: 0.32