Naoise Ó Cearúil (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

Funny enough, it is coming up with Údarás na Gaeltachta in the Irish language committee.

Much of the discourse, publicly and privately, is about what will happen with AI and what we can anticipate. What I think most people fail to acknowledge is that those impacts are being felt and seen here and now. We might not realise that. We talk about it with regard to education, with older people and so on. We are maybe not seeing the impacts, but they are happening. One thing I am very conscious and cognisant of is that when we look at the EU AI Act, particularly if we read in conjunction with the Draghi report – it is important to look at the context between both – we can see that regulation has a key role and that there needs to be regulation. As Professor Smeaton mentioned, regulation is very difficult, particularly in a fast-moving and fast-paced industry. How do the witnesses envisage regulation working in Ireland in the context of offsetting as many risks as possible while not stymying innovation?