Tax Code
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-26
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Simon Harris (FG), Wicklow

That is right; we need to take it deadly seriously. I do not mean this about Deputy O'Connor but about me. I always think that speaking with great authority on something that is fast evolving is challenging because we are all learning about this in real time. That is not an excuse or a reason not to take it extremely seriously because the countries that work out how best to respond to this are the countries that will do the best. We have only to look at the Future Forty report, which my Department published.
It refers to the huge demographic challenges this country is going to face. One of the great ones is that everyone is going to live to be much older, on average, and the population is going to age. The question of whether we can transform healthcare through the use of AI, for example, points to one area where I believe we could see real productivity gains. At the moment, all of the conversation seems to be about productivity gains in the private sector and just being aware of the risk in the public sector. We have got to do a bit better than that.
The other point is that, up until now, every technological revolution has resulted in more jobs at the end of it than at the start. That merits close monitoring. What we do know is that training and upskilling comprise an immediate issue, and we have to take that very seriously.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-26/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:04+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-26