AI declarations in witness statements arrive in Ireland on 1 September 2026. Mr Justice David Barniville, President of the High Court, signed practice direction HC 142 on 29 July, and it does something the courts of England and Wales have stopped short of doing. It puts a signed declaration about artificial intelligence into the opening paragraphs of every affidavit, witness statement and expert report placed before that court.
What HC 142 requires
The practice direction separates two kinds of document. For pleadings and submissions, the work a legal representative puts their name to, using a generative tool does not by itself have to be disclosed. Verification carries the weight instead. Anyone relying on an authority has to confirm that it exists and supports the proposition it is cited for, and quotations have to be checked and correctly attributed. The direction is blunt about one habit that catches firms out, which is that running an output through a second AI tool does not amount to checking it. Where the court asks, a party has to say whether these tools were used and how far.
Evidence is treated apart. A witness statement or affidavit has to carry a declaration that generative AI was not used to produce the substantive content, including by "altering, embellishing, strengthening, diluting or rephrasing the evidence set out", and that the document reflects the witness's own knowledge and recollection. Formatting and spell checking are carved out of that. An expert signs a similar declaration, and where a tool has played a part in drafting, analysing or interpreting, the expert has to set out the nature and extent of that use so the court can weigh the opinion properly.
Why evidence is treated apart
The distinction turns on whose words end up on the page. A skeleton argument is the advocate's argument, and the advocate answers for it whether a tool helped or not. A witness statement is meant to be the witness's own account, and a tool that tidies a rough recollection into confident prose produces a document that reads better and proves less. The risk is not confined to invented authority. It is a statement that has drifted from the person who signs it, hard to see on the page and simple to expose in cross examination.
The consequences are set out plainly. The court can reject a document in whole or in part, make an adverse costs order, or strike out a claim or defence. A practitioner who cites a source that does not exist, or fails to put an error right once it is known, faces referral to the Legal Services Regulatory Authority and a personal costs order. A party who finds a problem in their own document has to tell the other side and the court without delay, provide clean and marked up replacements, and carry the cost of that exercise.
What it means on this side of the Irish Sea
England and Wales has been circling the same question. The Civil Justice Council consulted on the use of AI in preparing court documents earlier this year. Its interim report proposed a declaration that AI has not been used to generate the content of a trial witness statement, in language close to the wording Ireland has now adopted. The council's update on the consultation responses left professional drafting alone and marked witness statements as the area needing more work, which we set out in AI in court documents, the CJC's emerging line. The final report is expected later in the year. A firm that reads HC 142 today has a fair sight of what a rule here would ask of it.
The work to do sits in how you take evidence rather than in your choice of software. Look at your statement taking process and decide where a tool is allowed near it, which for most firms means transcription and nothing beyond. Tell witnesses, in words they will follow, that a chatbot must not draft or improve their account, and keep a note that you have told them. Update your expert instruction letters so an expert knows to declare AI use and to record what was done. None of this waits on a rule change here, because a statement smoothed by a machine is a weakness in your case whether or not a practice direction says so.
The full text is published by the Courts Service of Ireland as practice direction HC 142 on the responsible use of generative AI in court documents, signed on 29 July 2026.
If you are unsure where AI sits in your statement taking today, a short review of that process is the sort of work we do, and it costs far less than unpicking a challenged statement after the event: talk it through with us.