Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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On 31 October 2024, in compliance with the first obligation under the AI Act, Ireland published a list of nine national public authorities responsible for protecting fundamental rights under the AI Act:

• An Coimisiún Toghcháin.
• Coimisiún na Meán.
• Data Protection Commission.
• Environmental Protection Agency.
• Financial Services & Pensions Ombudsman.
• Irish Human Rights & Equality Commission.
• Ombudsman.
• Ombudsman for Children.
• Ombudsman for the Defence Forces.

These bodies are not competent authorities under the Act, nor will any obligations or responsibilities be imposed upon them. Rather, these bodies will receive additional powers under the AI Act to facilitate them in carrying out their current responsibilities for protecting fundamental rights in circumstances where use of AI poses a high risk to those rights.

The European Commission has indicated that it does not foresee any resource implications for the identified fundamental rights authorities. The list of fundamental rights authorities will be kept under review by the Department and updated to reflect future changes in the national authorities.

On 4 March 2025, the Government decided that Ireland would adopt a distributed model of competent authorities, with a designated central authority to provide coordination and some centralised functions. This approach will leverage on the deep knowledge and expertise of the established sectoral regulators.

On this basis, the Government approved the designation of an initial list of eight competent authorities:

• Central Bank of Ireland.
• Commission for Communications Regulation.
• Commission for Railway Regulation.
• Competition and Consumer Protection Commission.
• Data Protection Commission.
• Health and Safety Authority.
• Health Products Regulatory Authority.
• Marine Survey Office of the Department of Transport.

Additional authorities, and the central authority will be designated following a future Government decision to ensure comprehensive implementation of the Act.

Competent authorities may incur additional costs in developing capabilities to carry out their functions under the AI Act. There is a legal obligation on Member States to ensure that competent authorities have access to “adequate technical, financial and human resources”. Any associated costs to facilitate this should be met from within the existing allocation in the first instance and be subject to discussion as part of the annual estimates process for all subsequent years.

The Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment will not be providing additional funding directly to any of the competent authorities and fundamental rights authorities.

It is therefore a matter for each competent authority as part of its budget 2026 process to include sufficient resource requests to ensure that it is in a position by August 2026 to act in an enforcement and compliance capacity.