Artificial Intelligence
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-16
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Peter Burke (FG), Longford-Westmeath

We have updated our digital and AI strategy, which has 80 deliverables, while working right across our skill partners to ensure our citizens are getting that transformational training that makes those jobs sticky. We also have done a huge amount of work on establishing our national skills observatory with the Minister, Deputy Lawless, and his Department of further and higher education to profile those skills and to ensure we are having the output from our tertiary education partners that really reflects a changing labour force. It is going to be a big challenge for someone who started a course in third level two or three years ago as the labour market has changed significantly, particularly at entry level. We have a huge amount of training and skills profiling in relation to that. I mentioned what our colleagues in the IDA are doing in making a database of 300,000 employees and making those jobs more sticky and targeting them before they come under pressure. The key thing we are trying to do is predict the cohorts that are under pressure and get that training in, get in with our employers and offer them the training so employees can benefit from it and ultimately secure the jobs rather than leaving them exposed to artificial intelligence.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:50+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-16