Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)

I thank Mr. Herrick.

One of the points our guests made is that they have raised concerns with the Department of public expenditure and reform over the fact that its guidelines on the responsible use of AI in the public service do not refer to the public sector human rights and equality duty. We had officials from that Department in here last week and it was striking that their opening statement made no reference whatsoever to human rights or fundamental rights. Deputy Mythen made this point. When I asked the officials whether they had conducted a fundamental rights impact assessment under Recital 96 of the EU AI Act, they were not able to list anything. It does not seem that any fundamental rights impact assessment has taken place. Everything the officials say they have been addressing so far has not been defined by them as high risk, meaning no fundamental rights impact assessment is required. Are our guests aware of any fundamental rights impact assessments taking place within the public sector or of any activities they would qualify as being high risk and therefore requiring such an assessment?