Last week I had the great pleasure and privilege of speaking at the 15th Annual International Symposium on Digital Ethics, hosted by the Center for Digital Ethics and Policy in the School of Commun…

The Chair of Digital Rights Ireland and Associate Professor at UCD's Sutherland School of Law, Professor TJ McIntyre, has said the main risks associated with AI glasses so far involve "quasi-sexual ab...

The Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) has today launched the 2025 Progress in the Penal System (PIPS) Report, warning that Ireland’s prison system is “sinking under the weight of prison...

Knee jerk reactions, however understandable, will only draw young people into a criminal justice net in which they will become trapped at huge personal and financial cost

The memory of criminalisation 24th September 2026 Irish Government successful in including redress for past criminalisation in strategy. The first ever Council of Europe Strategy on equal rights fo…

Scotland is one of the few places that collects and publishes data on the use of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Earlier this month (September 2026), the Scottish ECT Audit Network (SEAN) publishe…

By Katarzyna Widlas-Klimsiak How should the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR, the Court) reconcile, under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), a State’s obligation to secure appropriat...

Building more prison places will not fix a problem that starts with a shortage of psychiatric beds

We still don’t know where 19 mothers and 859 infants associated with Bessborough were buried, Conall Ó Fatharta says

Crowded prisons are unsafe and ours are grossly overcrowded

Check your Chrome extensions now: ‼️ A flaw could have let any website read your private WhatsApp chats.

Artificial intelligence giant settles copyright infringement case

Immaculate conception, fine half, electrocution lessons, a fifty and more in professor’s compendium

The legal gap for gay Ukrainians has always been unbearable. Then the war with Russia seemed to make the disparity untenable. But the gap remains.

A roadworks company has apologised to a woman, who lost her immediate family - her husband and two children - in a road incident in Inishowen, Co Donegal six years ago.

'I don't in any way blame Cork University Hospital. I think they're doing the very best they can with the resources they have, but I think an awful lot is being put on them without enough proper train...

The IPKat blog reports on copyright, patent, trade mark, info-tech and confidentiality issues from a mainly UK and European perspective.

Ireland’s implementation of the digital wallet pilot raises significant legal, privacy, security, governance and transparency concerns, particularly given the State’s reported trialling of...

The likely uses for the wallet remain unclear

At the heart of this issue lies a simple but vital principle: medical confidentiality. It is the foundation of trust between patient and doctor. Without it, people do not speak freely. Without it, car...

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The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) today welcomed the proposed establishment of a statutory Disregard Scheme for certain historical…

A new EU directive to be implemented by this December will change how delivery workers are classified and will likely increase prices of takeaways for customers.

Hundreds of thousands of people in Sudan are bracing for their city to be overrun by a militia notorious for committing atrocities.

We have spent too long treating gambling harm as a failure of character. A ruthless approach to regulation is needed

Women across the EU are losing billions of euro every year because of delays in implementing new pay transparency laws, according to research from the European Trade Union Institute.

My friend and I might not have known what exactly was going on there, but we knew enough to want to run away from the place, writes Audrey Hackett

Open letter criticises State’s ‘questionable track record’ on digital policy and corporate tax

the Irish for rights

'There is a very strong association between cannabis and psychosis,' Cork doctor tells Oireachtas health committee

A verdict of death by misadventure has been recorded into the death of a prisoner with a history of mental illness after he had been physically restrained by staff at Cloverhill Prison in Dublin six y...

Senior judges agree case raises issues of public importance and will make it priority hearing

New retirement age rights allowing employees to remain in employment beyond their contractual retirement age have come into effect.

As Dublin city was preparing for Pride celebrations this week, inside Leinster House legislation to correct a "historical injustice" done to gay men was moving its way through the Seanad.

The Mental Health Commission (MHC) has published 15 inspection reports for approved inpatient mental health centres across Limerick, Cork, Dublin, Galway, Kildare, Louth, Mayo, Monaghan, Sligo and Wes...

Inspections across 15 mental healthcare locations found varying levels of compliance on regulations, standards and rules

AI systems being considered for use in courts and tribunals can be significantly influenced by the quality of legal arguments put before them, according to new research from Maynooth University and Un...

'I’ve lost a lot of my fine motor skills, my eyesight is getting fuzzier, and my speech is slurring a lot more. I would give anything for this drug'

I haven't really written about machine consciousness, super-intelligence, or artificial general intelligence (AGI) before; I never felt the need, and some of the questions on AI consciousness are entirely outside of my area of expertise. I have always assumed that some sort of AI consciousness would be achieved in the far future, but not within my lifetime, but I had nothing to base this opinion other than being an avid consumer of science fiction.

It was only a matter of time before the fake electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) statistics, provided by NHS England in answer to a parliamentary question (see my posts here and here), would make their…