Ms Hilary O'Meara:

I was just about to make that point to build on what has been said. Neither am I familiar with exactly what Spain has done, but we are taking a signal that we are up and running and looking at this. As we have got ready for the Act, we should start as soon as we can, resource the body properly and show intent that we are going to enforce the Act. The devil is going to be in the detail of the implementation. There is enough flexibility to be able to figure out issues based on how the technologies emerge, but Ireland should be at the forefront, whereby we stand up our response to the Act, have the expertise and resource and learn from what has gone before with social media, the Data Protection Commissioner and so on, and I would love Ireland to stand up strongly in that regard. This is another vehicle where we could talk to other EU countries and get this collaboration going. Businesses are taking it very seriously, as has been said. Equally, we are adopting all the principles in the Act, reading it and trying to get ahead, which is encouraging. The Act is having a ripple effect globally. If organisations are going to do work in Europe, they will have to comply, so they are watching that and implementing it at the global level, which is good. The EU is standing up as a leader.

Deputy Bruton asked about innovation versus regulation and which is the correct approach. It is about striking a balance and we have to walk that line as we go forward, but it is better to have innovation in the context of responsible AI than not, and I think we are taking the right approach as long as we continue to encourage innovation. To go back to the idea of the Government having those sandboxes as a safe place where businesses can go to innovate safely, that is going to be very important. It goes back to us being really well informed, understanding this technology and putting measures in place that mean we can lead, demonstrate and make the right decisions based on knowledge and fact as opposed to the noise and clutter that is out there at the moment.