Besides the EU AI Act, there is no specific national regulation of AI in Ireland.
Yes, to support the implementation of the EU AI Act. The Irish Government announced on 5 March 2025 that Ireland will adopt a distributed model of implementation of the EU AI Act, with the intention being to use the existing national framework of sectoral authorities for enforcement of the EU AI Act. The Irish Government in its Spring 2025 Government Legislative Programme states the that the heads of bill for this legislation are in preparation. The purpose of this bill will be to give full effect to the EU AI Act and will designate the National Competent Authorities responsible for implementation and enforcement.
The Irish Data Protection Commission (the "DPC"), issued guidance in July 2024, relating to the use of AI and the growing popularity and use of AI such as Large Language Models ("LLMs"). The guidance also refers to the growing concern of the processing of personal data during AI model development and usage which may pose certain risks such as unncessary data use or data accuracy issues. The guidance places a particular emphasis on organisations employing these AI systems and where such systems use personal data, it is necessary to assess the organisation's GDPR compliance obligations. The guidance can be found in the attached links below.
In addition, in December 2024 the DPC provided a statement on the European Data Protection Board ("EDPB") opinion on the use of personal data for the development and deployment of AI models. The DPC sought an opinion in September 2024 on a number of key questions regarding the use of personal data in the context of AI models and focused on four key areas set out below. The statement issued by the DPC can be found in the attached links below.
(i) Under what circumstances may an AI Model be considered as ‘anonymous’?;
(ii) How controllers may demonstrate the appropriateness of legitimate interest as a legal basis for personal data processing to create, update and/or develop an AI Model;
(iii) How controllers may demonstrate the appropriateness of legitimate interest as a legal basis for personal data processing to deploy an AI Model; and
(iv) What are the consequences of an unlawful processing of personal data in the development phase of an AI model on the subsequent processing or operation of the AI model?
On 5 March 2025, the Irish Government approved a recommendation from the Minister of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment (the Minister in charge of overseeing the implementation of the EU AI Act in Ireland), to adopt a distributed model of implementation of the EU AI Act. The press release can be located here: gov.ie - Ministers Burke and Smyth welcome government approval of roadmap for implementing the EU Artificial Intelligence Act.
Under the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (the "DSM Directive"), provisions relating to text and mining were transposed into Irish copyright law. Text and data mining under the DSM Directive refers to any automated analytical technique aimed at analysing text and data in digital form in order to generate informaiton which inlcudes but is not limited to patterns, trends and correlations. The DSM Directive sets out text and data mining in the context of scientific research and hte exception and limitation for text and data mining.
There are no Irish data protection laws which specifically address AI however the DPC has issued guidance, please refer to the third answer and GDPR applies in Ireland.
On 4 March 2025, the Irish Government approved the designation of an initial list of eight public bodies as competent authorities, responsible for implementing and enforcing the EU AI Act within their respective sectors. These authorities are as follows:
Additional authorities and a lead regulator who will coordinate the enforcement of the EU AI Act as well as provide a number of other functions, will be designated by the Irish Government in the future. The timeline of which is currently unknown.
The DPC issued a press release in September 2024 to state that it had concluded its proceedings against X’s AI tool, Grok, after X agreed to permanently adhere to the terms of the undertaking issued by the DPC. The DPC had significant concerns about the processing of personal data from public posts of X’s EU/EEA users for training Grok, which posed risks to individuals' fundamental rights and freedoms. This was the first time the DPC utilised its powers under Section 134 of the Data Protection Act 2018 to take such action.
Additionally, the DPC is addressing broader issues related to the use of personal data in AI models across the industry. It has requested an opinion from the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) to facilitate agreement on core issues in AI model training and development, aiming for proactive and consistent Europe-wide regulation.
No, there are no sector specific laws or guidelines/soft laws where AI is specifically addressed. However Ireland has established an AI Advisory Council. This is a panel of experts with a brief to provide advice to the Irish Government, and it has issued recommendations in that regard.
*Information is accurate up to 30 April 2025
