Irish Government should recuse itself from digital policy debates
“What is it that is stopping us from regulating? [...] Why can't we protect our children? Why can't we protect our politics? Why can't we protect our national security? [...] The answer is Ireland.” (Ryan, 2026)
A group of 50 academics has shared an open letter calling for the Irish Government to “recuse itself from key EU negotiations” (Zuboff et al, 2026) on digital rule books, and corporate tax rules. This disqualification is made on the basis of “Ireland's questionable record regarding the protection of EU digital rights” (ibid.).
As Ireland began its turn of the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union on July 1st of 2026, the failings of the Irish Government to enforce EU GDPR law have been foregrounded.
The Vienna-based NGO noyb has been documenting and working to enforce data protection laws (particularly the GDPR and the ePrivacy Directive) since 2018. The specific bias and deficiencies of the Irish Data Protection Commission have been a regular point of attention. Most recently, the DPC named a former Meta lobbyist as its third commissioner, suggesting that Meta now officially regulates itself.
This has led Ryan from ICCL's Enforce to state that Ireland is big tech's lapdog, which casts a long shadows on any ongoing issues relating to European digital sovereignty, or climate regulation of big tech.
Johnny Ryan
The letter says there is “good reason to believe that Ireland continues to facilitate tax arbitrage by multinational corporations,” and that “Ireland’s reliance upon giant non-EU firms creates insurmountable conflicts of interest, as evidenced by the country’s track record in the area of data regulation and taxation”.
The Climate Justice Universities Union supports the call for Ireland to recuse itself from digital policy debates, and applauds the work of noyb, Enforce, and the group of academics calling this government to task.