Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 16 June 2026
185. Deputy Mairéad Farrell asked the Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment to ensure that there is increased resources and public expenditure directed towards State bodies that regulate the rapidly expanding AI industry; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40662/26]
View answerThe EU Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act is an EU regulation that came into force on 2 August 2024 and is directly applicable throughout the EU. Its provisions will be introduced gradually over a 36-month period following its entry into force.
The Act aims to ensure a high level of protection for individuals’ health, safety, and fundamental rights, while supporting the development and uptake of human-centric and trustworthy AI. It establishes a harmonised regulatory framework for AI systems that are placed on the market or used within the EU.
Ireland will adopt a distributed model of implementation of the EU AI Act, building on the capacity and expertise of established sectoral regulators. Ireland’s decision to utilise a distributed model of existing sectoral regulators means Ireland is well placed to leverage existing experienced and established resources and operations in the first instance, and then build on that robust and effective capacity as needed for subsequent years, in line with the AI Act's staggered timeline of enforcement.
As part of the estimates process, work is ongoing by the national competent authorities and their respective Departments to determine the appropriate level of financial resourcing required to ensure the effective fulfilment of Ireland’s obligations from the enforcement commencement date.
The AI Office of Ireland will act as the central coordinating authority for the implementation of the AI Act in the State, ensuring that all relevant authorities and stakeholders are aligned in their interpretation and application of the Regulation.
While the Office will help facilitate coordination among regulators, the enforcement of the AI Act will remain the responsibility of the designated sectoral regulators. However, the Office will host a centralised pool of technical expertise in AI technologies as well as legal and regulatory affairs providing market surveillance authorities and other authorities with access to a framework of expertise to support them in fulfilling their mandates. The AI Act required Member States to report, by 2 August 2025, on the status of the financial and human resource capacity of national competent authorities. This reporting must be completed every two years. Ireland submitted the first required report last August following consultation with the competent authorities and relevant Government departments, through the National AI Act Implementation Committee.
My Department secured €1.5 million in Budget 2026 to implement the start-up phase of the National AI Office. Additional resources will be sought as part of the 2027 Budget process as the National AI Office scales and grows.
