Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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401. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the work being carried out by his Department and any engagement with other Departments and Government agencies to address concerns in relation to issues such as AI, social media algorithms, disinformation and cybersecurity; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [47593/25]

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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While my Department does not have direct responsibility for matters relating to social media algorithms, disinformation, or cybersecurity, we work closely with the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport and the Department of Justice on these issues when required.

In relation to AI, my Department has been working with stakeholders both nationally and across the EU over the last number of years in preparation for the implementation of the AI Act.

The regulation is designed to provide a high level of protection to people’s health, safety and fundamental rights, and to promote the adoption of human-centric, trustworthy AI. It will provide a harmonised regulatory framework for AI systems placed on the market, or deployed, in the EU.

Part of the work has been to generally consult and communicate with the wide range of entities set out in the Act, including providers and deployers of AI, and to raise awareness of the obligations arising from the Act for which they need to make the necessary provisions.

In parallel, the European Commission has published its AI Act Code of Practice for providers of General-Purpose AI (GPAI) models. General-purpose AI models play a significant role in encouraging innovation and uptake of AI within the EU, as they can be used for a variety of tasks and integrated into a wide array of AI systems. For this reason, providers of such models have certain obligations under the AI Act, in particular with regards to systemic risks that these models might pose due to their power and generality. The Code of Practice and supporting guidelines for providers of General-Purpose AI (GPAI) models, are designed to help providers comply with the GPAI provisions in the AI Act and cover the topics of transparency, copyright, and safety and security. The AI Act's GPAI model provisions came into effect from August 2025 across the EU.

On 31 October 2024, in compliance with the first obligation under the AI Act, Ireland published a list of national public bodies responsible for protecting fundamental rights under the AI Act.

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.

On 25 July 2025, I signed the Statutory Instrument for the European Union Artificial Intelligence Designation Regulations 2025. This SI designates a number of competent authorities for the regulation of AI in Ireland alongside a single point of contact for the Act. I am pleased to say this was done in advance of the 2 August 2025 deadline thus fulfilling another important obligation of the AI Act.

The next step involves utilising primary legislation to establish a new central coordinating authority, provide a legal basis for designated market surveillance authorities to cooperate, and lay down rules for penalties and other enforcement measures for non-compliance. Work is underway on preparing heads of this Bill, which must be enacted by 2 August 2026.