Artificial Intelligence
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-19
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Malcolm Byrne (FF), Wicklow-Wexford

I thank the Minister for the priority he has been giving to this proposal. As he says, the advisory council has strongly recommended it, as have those of us on the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Artificial Intelligence. Change is happening at pace and things are happening quickly. We saw the recommendations within the Government's strategy on AI and digitalisation, which was published yesterday, but we also had a report from the Department of Finance yesterday that identified that Ireland is potentially most at risk from rapid changes resulting from AI that will impact on the labour force, particularly in the areas of IT, professional services and financial services. It is therefore critical that we are equipped and that we see what these real-time changes are going to be. I welcome the moves by the Minister for further and higher education, Deputy Lawless, to provide microcredentials for skills and the whole-of-government approach through the skills observatory and AI observatory so that we will be prepared for the opportunities that will be presented and for the significant levels of job displacement we are going to see.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-19/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:40+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-19