IE AI Companion (Children) Bill
Artificial Intelligence Companion Services (Protection of Children) Bill 2026 (Bill No. 93 of 2026)
Would prohibit providers from making AI companion services (chatbots designed to simulate companionship, friendship, emotional support or ongoing social engagement) and intimate AI services (simulating romantic, partner or family relationships) available to children under 16, require age assurance that does not rely solely on self-declaration, require all AI chatbots to identify as AI, and bar false claims that a system is human, conscious or feels emotions. Coimisiún na Meán would enforce, and the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act 2022 would be amended so Online Safety Codes can cover AI chatbot services.
Jurisdiction
Ireland
Enacted
Pending
Effective
TBD
Enforcement
Coimisiún na Meán (information notices, compliance notices, directions, and the administrative financial sanctions regime of the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act 2022)
Private Member's Bill introduced in Dáil Éireann by Deputy Malcolm Byrne on September 29, 2026 (Bill No. 93 of 2026); text as initiated and explanatory memorandum published the same day. The Oireachtas bill page lists it as before Dáil Éireann at Second Stage. Commencement would be by ministerial order. Recorded as proposed because it is a non-government bill at its first stage.
Houses of the Oireachtas: Artificial Intelligence Companion Services (Protection of Children) Bill 2026 (bill page with text as initiated and explanatory memorandum)Why It Matters
Proposes an outright under-16 prohibition on AI companion and intimate AI services in an EU member state, enforced by the national online safety regulator through existing Online Safety Code powers. The definitions turn on how a service is designed, developed or marketed rather than on how individual users interact with it.
Recent Developments
Introduced September 29, 2026. The explanatory memorandum presents it as complementing the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act 2022, the Digital Services Act, the GDPR and the AI Act, and future EU child-safety measures; the European Commission's Kids Act proposal of September 17, 2026 covers overlapping ground at EU level. The Minister would have to review the Act within three years of commencement.
At a Glance
Applies to
Harms addressed
Requires
Who Must Comply
- Providers of AI companion services and intimate AI services available in Ireland
- Providers of AI chatbots generally, for the AI-identification and anti-anthropomorphic-misrepresentation duties
Obligations fall on:
Applicability thresholds:
Safety Provisions
- Prohibits making AI companion services available to persons under 16 (section 4)
- Prohibits making intimate AI services, designed or marketed to simulate a romantic relationship or a spouse, partner or equivalent relationship, available to a child, defined in the bill as a person under 16 (section 5)
- Prohibits advertising, recommending or promoting prohibited services to children, including through recommender systems, behavioural advertising or profiling (section 6)
- Requires appropriate and proportionate age assurance that does not rely solely on self-declaration, and blocking of access once a user is found to be under 16 (section 7)
- Requires every AI chatbot to be clearly identified as an AI system (section 8)
- Prohibits falsely representing that an AI system is a natural person, conscious, a legal person or experiences human emotions (section 9)
- Ministerial power, after consulting Coimisiún na Meán, to designate further categories of chatbot as AI companion services where they create a substantial risk of emotional manipulation or inappropriate social dependency in children (section 3)
- Coimisiún na Meán may make Online Safety Codes for AI chatbot services and issue directions such as ceasing service to children or disabling particular chatbot personas (sections 19 and 20)
Compliance & Enforcement
Penalties
criminal (up to 5yr)
View on map
Ireland
Focus Areas
Cite This
APA
Ireland. (n.d.). Artificial Intelligence Companion Services (Protection of Children) Bill 2026 (Bill No. 93 of 2026).
Related Regulations
EU Kids Act (Proposed)
Commission proposal for an EU regulation on minors' online safety that would set a harmonised minimum age of 15 for autonomous accounts on risky social networking and video-sharing services, impose safety-by-design duties on those services, online games, app stores, AI companions and general conversational chatbots, and lay down EU-wide rules for privacy-preserving age assurance. Providers of AI companions and general conversational chatbots would have to avoid designs and behaviours that simulate interpersonal relationships likely to create emotional dependency in minors, disable use of a minor's prior interactions by default, gate access for under-13s behind guardian tools, and test and monitor their systems for risks to minors' health, safety and wellbeing.
Ireland AI Act 2026
Ireland's national implementing law for the EU AI Act. Establishes Oifig IS na hÉireann, the AI Office of Ireland, and gives effect to Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 through a distributed model in which existing sectoral regulators act as market surveillance authorities, with an adjudication system for administrative fines capped at the AI Act's Article 99 limits and criminal offences for specified non-compliance with authorities' powers.
EU DSA Minors Guidelines
Commission guidelines under DSA Article 28(1) establishing measures for online platforms to protect minors, including age assurance, default privacy settings, anti-addictive design restrictions, recommender system safeguards, and protections against grooming and exploitation.
Brazil ECA Digital
Comprehensive child digital safety law applying to any IT product or service directed at or likely to be accessed by minors in Brazil, with extraterritorial reach.
Ireland OSMR
Establishes Coimisiún na Meán (Media Commission) with binding duties for video-sharing platforms. One of the cleaner examples of explicit self-harm/suicide/eating-disorder content duties in platform governance.
Finland AI Act
Finland's EU AI Act implementation using decentralized supervision model. Traficom serves as single point of contact and coordination authority. Ten market surveillance authorities share enforcement across sectors. New Sanctions Board handles fines over EUR 100,000.
Last updated October 4, 2026. Verify against primary sources before relying on this information.