Professor Deirdre Ahern:

I am happy to come in on that. The Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment conducted a consultation on how we would roll out the implementation of regulation under the AI Act. It is complex because it is a cross-sectoral regulation. It is not just for one area; it covers a vast number of areas. There will be eight competent authorities or regulators under the Act. These will liaise with other entities that have expertise around, say, human rights and so on. They include the Data Protection Commission, the Central Bank and the Health Regulatory Authority. Because each of those has built up so much sectoral expertise, the decision was made that they should still work together. This is known as a distributed model. There will then be a co-ordinating body that will work to make sure there will be overlaps.

The Deputy is right that it is complex. There will be overlaps. In a way, Ireland is feeding into work elsewhere. Each member state is part of the European AI board. Member states are working together and discussing best practice. By August, we should know more about what the co-ordinating body in Ireland will be.