Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Taoiseach for coming before the committee. I have a number of questions and an observation. I chair the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment. We had a presentation on artificial intelligence, AI, yesterday. It frightened a lot of people who listened to it. We all agreed that it should not be the role of one committee to look after it. I suggest we look at setting up a special committee on the issue of AI. It is a cross-departmental issue that will affect all our lives. The experts tell us that one in three jobs will be affected by AI. Yesterday experts from Trinity College, the Law Society and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions came before the committee. They all expressed concerns. There are great opportunities with AI but there are great concerns about us not getting it right.

Last December, the committee published a report on the Unified Patent Court. What are the plans for this? I do not expect the Taoiseach to give me a date. Is it the Government's intention to hold a referendum on the Unified Patent Court? I spoke to IBEC representatives this morning who said businesses are struggling. Some of them are being sued regarding patents. A total of 17 member states have joined the Unified Patent Court, which came into jurisdiction on 1 June. Ireland has not joined as of yet. The committee has recommended that we have a referendum. Is there a rough outline on when we might have that referendum?

European works councils have been discussed extensively by the committee in recent years. I understand they were also discussed at the previous committee. Are there plans to deal with this issue and the other issues whereby workers coming to Ireland cannot access the services of the Workplace Relations Commission or the Labour Court? There are also issues with European works councils. We have heard submissions from employers' and workers' organisations and they all agree that we need to do something on this specifically as soon as possible.

I also want to raise the issue of unemployment blackspots. We have never been in a better place. The number of jobs created in recent years has been phenomenal. It has had a real effect in communities throughout the State. However, we are leaving some people behind, particularly those with disabilities, people from the Traveller community and women who left the workforce to raise children who have skills and can come back in. We can do more to get them into the workforce. There are also generational issues. According to the most recent CSO statistics, my home city of Limerick has seven out of ten of the unemployment blackspots. Will the Taoiseach look specifically at a specific task force-type structure for Limerick to examine these unemployment blackspots?