James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)

I thank the Chair and all the witnesses. This is extremely helpful to the work we are carrying out. For anyone tuning in to the earlier committee session and this session, their views would probably be reinforced that a lot of these companies are essentially operating in a wild west environment when it comes to child safety. One of the young people here earlier was sort of criticising the media narratives of amping up the fear of AI but the reason there is fear is that people are fearful of things they cannot control and there is a great sense that we are not in control and that the “state” - whether it is the Irish State or the EU state - is not in control of the advance in technology, yet so many of us, including people in this room, benefit hugely from the innovations that are taking place. As Noeleen Blackwell highlighted, the EU has passed an Act, to its credit. It distinguishes itself from the United States in that regard. The next phase will be the implementing regulations and what they will look like. Domestically, Ireland and the other member states will have to establish their own AI offices. However, in the face of all that we are also operating in an environment where the EU wants to be more competitive in this space. It wants to ensure the innovations brought about by AI are here. The nut that seems very hard to crack, and I do not know the answer to this, is how is it that all these issues, some of which are real criminal justice issues and ones of mental harm, are being presented in such a binary way? If we were to engage directly with some of the major operators in this space, and I hope that we will, they will talk about their safeguarding and all these things, but none of it is working at the level that we need it to work to.

I have probably given too long an introduction to get a substantive answer. Perhaps the witnesses can guide us on this in future submissions. When we deliver our AI office in Ireland, the primary legislation will come through this committee. If there is any clear view on how we can make Ireland robust from a regulatory perspective that does not dampen innovation but protects children, we are all ears and we want to listen to anyone who can talk about it.