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ARTICLE · 31 JULY 2026

Irish Artificial Intelligence Act 2026 Signed Into Law

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Ireland's Regulation of Artificial Intelligence Act 2026 has been signed into law, establishing the AI Office of Ireland as the central coordinating authority for EU AI Act compliance. The legislation creates a distributed oversight model involving multiple national bodies and introduces comprehensive supervision, enforcement mechanisms, and regulatory sandboxes to balance innovation with regulatory compliance.

IrelandStrategy
Marie McGinley
Marie McGinley
Davinia Brennan
Davinia Brennan
Sarah Jayne Hanna
Sarah Jayne Hanna
Eoin Burke
Eoin Burke
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On 21 July 2026, the Irish President, Catherine Connolly, signed the Regulation of Artificial Intelligence Act 2026 (the “Act”) into law, following an accelerated legislative process.

The Act gives further effect in Irish law to the EU Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) Act, and provides for national supervision and enforcement of the obligations set out in the EU AI Act. Interestingly, and somewhat unusually, the text of the final Act remains unchanged since the initial publication of the Regulation of Artificial Intelligence Bill 2026 (the “Bill”) last month (previously discussed here), as no amendments were passed during the legislative process.

The Act will come into operation on such day(s) as the Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment (the “Minister”) appoints by order(s). Irish organisations should take steps to prepare for engagement with the AI Office of Ireland (the “AI Office”) and the other competent authorities which form a part of the distributed model for AI

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