Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 18 November 2025

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence, Truth and Democracy: Discussion

2:00 am

Mr. Art O'Leary:

Yes. I thank the Deputy. He will be aware that An Coimisiún Toghcháin has no regulatory authority. We have no investigative ability or sanctioning authority. It was originally envisaged in Part 5 of the Electoral Reform Act 2022 that we would have a role to play here, but that has been overtaken by EU legislation, etc. I understand that the Government intends to bring forward new legislation to deal with this. We used our information and education powers to take action on this. This particular deepfake came to our attention at about 10.30 p.m. one evening. We used our special channels with the platforms - the priority whitelist channels - to engage with them, which we did before midnight. By the time anybody got out of bed the following morning, that account was suspended. There were issues around that. The Streisand effect is very important. We all recognise that that happens-----