{"id":621548,"date":"2026-06-04T22:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T22:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/621548\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T22:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T22:44:08","slug":"ffs-byrne-steps-down-as-ai-committee-chair-after-arrest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/621548\/","title":{"rendered":"FF&#8217;s Byrne steps down as AI Committee Chair after arrest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Fianna F\u00e1il TD Malcolm Byrne has said that he is stepping down as Chair of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Artificial Intelligence.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rte.ie\/news\/ireland\/2026\/0601\/1576211-malcolm-byrne\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">It follows his confirmation that he was arrested on suspicion of drink driving last Thursday<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement, he said that he was stepping down due to the &#8220;seriousness&#8221; of the mater, and that the decision was &#8220;entirely&#8221; his own.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I am stepping down totally without prejudice to the ongoing legal process arising from my arrest on suspicion of drink driving. There is no further movement on this issue.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Given the seriousness of the matter, my deep respect for my fellow committee members, and despite my strong personal and professional commitment to this area, I believe this is the right course of action to protect the Committee&#8217;s important work and ensure it can continue without any unnecessary distraction.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As the garda investigation remains ongoing, and I am cooperating fully with that process, it would not be appropriate for me to comment further on that matter at this time,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Byrne said last week that while travelling from his hotel in Dublin to Dublin Airport, he was stopped at a mandatory garda checkpoint in the city centre.<\/p>\n<p>Fianna F\u00e1il confirmed that Mr Byrne informed the party that he was arrested on suspicion of drink driving.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rte.ie\/news\/politics\/2026\/0604\/1576678-taoiseach-hungary-peter-magyar\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Earlier, the Taoiseach was asked about the arrest of Deputy Byrne, and he said that he abhorred drink driving<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s a very serious issue. The garda\u00ed are pursuing that matter and we await developments on that,&#8221; Miche\u00e1l Martin said.<\/p>\n<p>On whether Deputy Byrne would face political punishment if charged, Mr Martin said he would not pre-empt the &#8220;full facts.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Taoiseach confirmed that he had spoken to the Wicklow-Wexford TD over the weekend.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Byrne confirmed that he will remain an active member of the AI Committee, and will fully support the Vice-Chair and any new Chair appointed.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I look forward to continuing my work as a member of the Committee and to continuing to write and speak about AI,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fianna F\u00e1il TD Malcolm Byrne has said that he is stepping down as Chair of the Joint Oireachtas&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621549,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-621548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}