The Regulation of Artificial Intelligence Act 2026 was signed into law by the President on 21 July 2026, giving effect in Ireland to the EU AI Act, Regulation (EU) 2024/1689. On 30 July, the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment announced that the Act has established the AI Office of Ireland (Oifig IS na hÉireann) as an independent statutory body, and that Paul Byrne has been appointed as its chief executive. The Office was expected to be operational from 2 August 2026.
Ireland has chosen a distributed enforcement model. The AI Office of Ireland acts as the central coordinating authority for the EU AI Act and as the single point of contact for the European Commission, sectoral regulators and the public, while existing regulators act as market surveillance authorities in their own sectors. The Act gives those authorities a range of enforcement tools, from cooperative compliance notices through to coercive measures and formal sanctions, and amends the Central Bank Act 1942 and the Competition and Consumer Protection Act 2014 to enable administrative sanctions for non-compliance.
Paul Byrne was previously Executive Director of Education, Innovation and Artificial Intelligence at the Medical Council of Ireland. Announcing the appointment, Minister Peter Burke described AI as a transformative technology with extraordinary potential that requires appropriate oversight.
For organisations, the distributed model means the relevant AI Act regulator will usually be the sectoral regulator they already deal with, coordinated by the AI Office. Where an AI system processes personal data, the Data Protection Commission keeps its GDPR jurisdiction in parallel, so AI Act compliance and GDPR compliance will often be examined side by side.
Acompli perspective: With the Irish enforcement structure now in law, Irish organisations have a clearer picture of who will ask questions about their AI systems and on what basis. The practical preparation is the same whichever regulator asks: an inventory of AI systems with their role and risk classification, and evidence that connects each system to the GDPR records it touches - the record of processing, the DPIA and the supplier record. Our EU AI Act in Ireland guide explains the enforcement model, and Acompli's EU AI Act workflow keeps classifications human-approved and linked to that GDPR evidence.