Mr. Liam Herrick:

We have two key messages. We have raised directly with the Department of public expenditure our concern that in issuing guidelines for public sector usage of AI, it has chosen to separate it and not make any cross-reference to the public sector duty in human rights and equality. That is a significant omission. It is missing a trick. There is a possibility of integrating the two to ensure that human rights and equality considerations are taken into account in all decisions about the use of AI. We would ask the Department to reconsider and revisit that decision.

If the designated regulatory bodies with a brief such as ours to oversee the impact on fundamental rights of the technology once it is in place are not properly resourced, we will not be able to fulfil that function. On public sector regulation and oversight, we can do better to put robust systems in place.