Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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6. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if the State supports an international legal prohibition on autonomous weapons; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17677/25]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Ireland regards the area of autonomous weapons systems as one of the most pressing issues facing the modern disarmament agenda. Their development and deployment raise serious ethical and legal questions and concerns including with regard to compliance with International Humanitarian law, human control and accountability.

Ireland favours a two-tier approach which would prohibit the development or use of systems which could not be used in full compliance with international humanitarian law or human rights law, and which would regulate other systems - including by ensuring meaningful human control and accountability. Ethical considerations and and bias mitigation measures must be incorporated into any future regulation of such weapons systems.

The primary forum to negotiate a legally binding instrument is the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons and its Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems. This multi-stakeholder group includes UN members, international organisations and civil society organisations. Ireland is active in these discussions and will continue to promote our principled and human rights focused position.

Ireland recognises that technological developments risk outpacing international processes to conclude legally binding international instruments by consensus. Therefore, along with all other EU member states, Ireland supports the US-led Political Declaration on the Responsible Military Use of AI and Autonomy, emphasising ethics and human rights in emerging military technologies. Ireland has also participated at both Responsible Artificial Intelligence in the Military Domain summits in The Hague (2023) and Seoul (2024).

Ireland will continue to engage in discussions on autonomous weapons systems with a view to agreeing the necessary prohibitions and regulations on their development, deployment and use as soon as possible.