I thank the Minister of State for her contribution today and thank all of my colleagues from the committee. I also thank Deputy O'Rourke for allowing me to go first. I have a constituency event so I really appreciate that. I have really enjoyed the work of the AI committee to date. I am a new TD and I am on three committees. I have to say, the AI committee has been the most divisive in a lot of ways. The polarised views of the Government and the Opposition on AI are so clear. There is a real emphasis on enterprise, innovation and competitiveness coming through from Government voices. From the Opposition, there are concerns around trust, risk, climate and what we see as many dangers presented by AI as it is rolled out in society. I name-checked that division not to emphasise it here in the Chamber but simply to say it was quite a pleasant surprise for me that we came together so well in compiling this report. We had a very productive and robust session to get through all of the amendments that were proposed to bring this report to completion. The model we are working on in bringing through modular reports which respond to the pace of AI and moving technology is exactly the way we should be dealing with this. I wanted to call that out immediately. I also call out the contribution of Senator Lynn Ruane, who I think put forward by far the majority of the amendments, probably about 70% of them, and put an awful lot of work into that. Obviously, she is not in the Chamber today so I wanted to make sure her work was recognised. One of the other things I have learned from being on this committee and on the culture, communications and sport committee is the cross-over between the two areas. I realise that AI as a topic is cropping up in many of the committees, such as the children and young people and education committees. Deputy Byrne and myself are both on those two committees and there have been some of the same witnesses in and some of the same topics debated about online safety, platforms and regulation. It is really important to mention this because there is still a perception that AI is distinct and is a technology that sits on its own. All of the issues we are dealing with in those online platforms are supercharged and turbocharged by the development of AI. Recommender algorithms are the problems they are because of AI. They have always been using AI and automated technology to prompt for us what we see on our screens. That is exactly what AI is doing. In the minds of many lawmakers and policymakers, there is perhaps still that distinction. What we are seeing, through the co-membership of these committees, is how integrated they are. I have certainly learned a lot through that. I will speak to a couple of the specific areas that have been touched on in the report and in the Minister of State's contribution and that of the committee Chair as well, starting with the AI office. This is something I have raised many times in the committee. I have concerns about the governance of the AI office and the location it currently has in the Department of enterprise. I raised this when the Minister of State was at the committee along with her officials. I emphasise that I am in no way trying to diminish the competence of her officials in calling out my concerns about the location of the AI office that currently sits in the Department of enterprise. It is quite the opposite. It is the job of the Department of enterprise's officials to promote industry, draw in investment and develop our economy through growth and trade. I do not believe that is where an office which is charged with the broader responsibility of the implementation of AI into society should sit. I also appreciate that, once the organisation is established, it will be then popped out and become independent. I have led an independent State agency, namely, the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, which is governed by the UN principles and is arguably the most independent State agency in this country. I can tell the Minister of State that where the organisation is born will forever inform how it operates. I have real concerns that the origins of it should be outside of the Department of enterprise. I echo Deputy Byrne's comments and his idea about the elevation of the Minister of State's office out of the Department of enterprise and put into a more central Government Department, such as the Department of the Taoiseach or the Department of public expenditure. It should be in a more central and neutral Department where she would have the authority to oversee the regulation of AI in a way that of course looks at enterprise, growth and competitiveness but has that more balanced view that I think is required in the treatment of fundamental rights and protections which are at threat because of this technology. This can be seen in examples I do not think I have to go into any more because we have discussing them ad nauseam for the past number of weeks. This is emblematic of a business focus and I might go back to that division for a little bit. Although I see in this report and in the words the Government says and Government spokespeople say about there definitely being issues of concern, the fact that we need better regulation and how we can have innovation with regulation, the actions are not stacking up. This is evident even in what the Minister of State set out here today. We have talked about the establishment of the AI office as a regulatory response to the AI Act. It is a requirement of the AI Act and we know that. However, we if we look to the last section of the Minister of State's contribution, she was talking about observatories that are around enterprise, as well as a summit with the title of "enabling AI to power innovation-led growth in Europe". I want to see more balance in all of those areas. I want that summit to be more balanced. I also want it to talk about the dangers of AI and not wash over that and pretend that we can - because we cannot. This is my overall point. If we do not trust AI and if we do not build a governance and regulatory framework that builds that trust in AI within our citizens, AI will not reach its potential. It will not reach its potential within our economy, our public sector or anywhere else. I really want to see that kind of shift from Government representatives on that. One of the places it really needs to happen is in the simplification agenda because I hear again and again that simplification does not mean deregulation. However, the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, said to me simplification does not mean deregulation but it does mean relieving the regulatory burden. In response from Google at the committee just this week, I heard the response that simplification is about streamlining. I believe Mr. O'Flaherty told me there have been something like 100 different EU directives relating to technology, they are drowning in all of this regulation and it needs to be streamlined, simplified and harmonised. I do not doubt representatives of Government believe that is what happening but I am sorry, that is not what is happening. It is deregulation. If these tech companies are drowning in that much regulation, how has Grok happened? That is my simple question. How has Grok happened and how have we seen such a failure to deal with it? The reality still exists that, right now, people can access the nudification feature on Grok. Despite the Minister of State's own efforts and her incredibly strong messaging on this, despite the investigations that are ongoing by An Garda Síochána and despite the co-operation of Coimisiún na Mean and the Data Protection Commission, with the European Commission and with the UK inquiry into privacy and despite all of these investigations, inquiries and avenues to access justice, people can still do what they could do all along. You just need to download a simple VPN and you can access the nudification feature. Besides that, you can access those nudification features on platforms other than Grok and X. These problems persist despite what the Government and the industry are describing as an overburdensome regulatory framework. It just does not stack up for me. The simplification agenda has to be examined by the Minister of State and her Government. The issue of AI and technology is not the only place I am coming across it. My procurement Bill two weeks ago was knocked back on the same basis of simplification. That took eight years of work from Senator Alice-Mary Higgins. It came to the Dáil floor on Second Stage a couple of weeks ago. It was in this very slot, actually. On the same basis of simplification, the Minister of State's Government said "No". For me, that is something the Minister of State has to look at. I appreciate that is what is coming down the track from Europe but we do not have to conform to it as a State. We can seek to better regulate and better build standards for our citizens and say to Europe that we will actually do it this way and we will show it why that works better. The digital omnibus is the absolutely crucial part of it in this space. The digital omnibus promises to gut the AI Act. I know people push back at me and say it will not gut the AI Act. If you look into the detail of it, the digital omnibus is doing exactly that. Before the AI Act is even implemented on 2 August this year, the omnibus packages that are going through at the moment will absolutely shift it back to self-regulation and pull right back on protections we have enjoyed under GDPR. We need to preserve the artificial intelligence, AI, systems' registrations' requirements, safeguard powers of Article 77 fundamental rights bodies, maintain high-risk AI system timelines, protect GDPR personal data protections, maintain human oversight requirements, limit the collection of sensitive personal data, protect inferred sensitive data and prevent weakening of AI literacy requirements. I am more than happy to submit that list to the Minister of State. I have quite an expanded piece of research done on this, which I can share with the Minister of State and her officials, which demonstrates that these omnibus packages will pull back on protections and rights. It is not benign. It is not harmonisation. It is deregulation and it is a threat to our safety from these products. I thank the Minister of State and thank all my colleagues in the committee. I have really enjoyed being a part of this. I am very proud of the report that we are tabling here today.

Sentiment score: 0.11