Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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AI is a powerful and fast evolving technology that is and will continue to have huge impacts on our economy and society.

The Government has been preparing for the increased prevalence of AI for a significant period of time. That is why we developed the National AI Strategy “AI – Here for Good” which was published in July 2021, and my Department is leading on cross-Departmental implementation of the strategy.

Underpinning our Strategy are three core principles to best embrace the opportunities of AI:

• adopting a human-centric approach to the application of AI;
• staying open and adaptable to new innovations; and
• ensuring good governance to build trust and confidence for innovation to flourish.

Substantial progress has been made on its implementation across various parts of Government in the two years since its launch and my officials are finalising an implementation report which will be published shortly.

The strategy recognises the potential of AI as a powerful problem solving tool as well as a driver of productivity and innovation. It is clear is that we can already see the benefits of AI in a range of fields including in healthcare settings, climate action and education.

AI is a general-purpose technology and will have potential application across a broad range of sectors and occupations. As such, AI adoption is much like the adoption of any broadly applicable technology, like the steam engine, electricity and information technology. On balance, the lessons of history suggest that AI, like earlier general-purpose technologies, will result in jobs lost but also jobs created, and the challenge for policy will be to ensure that the benefits from the jobs of the future are shared by all workers.

Due to its extremely broad application, and the fact that AI will reach into some areas deeply but affect many others in lesser ways, it is not possible to estimate the overall net impact on the workforce. However, it is anticipated that much of the disruption caused by AI will result in changes to job roles, tasks and distribution, rather than actual job losses. A key priority of Government's approach to AI is to ensure that our skills infrastructure is prepared to meet the training and upskilling needs of the current and future workforce.

In June 2022, the Expert Group on Future Skills needs published a review of the skills implications of AI over the next five-to-ten years, as well as the skills-related actions needed to realise the potential of AI. Work is underway to implement the recommendations of the review, which includes programmes for workforce upskilling and lifelong learning.

I encourage all workers and firms to start making an assessment of the likely impact of AI on their own jobs. In most cases, we are not talking about actual job losses, just changes to the ways jobs are done.

Last week the OECD published a review of Ireland’s National Skills Strategy which confirmed the strong foundations of Ireland’s skills development system- but also areas for improvement if we are to future proof our economy and maintain a competitive edge in a constantly evolving enterprise and skills needs context.

The report and its recommendations are particularly welcome in the context of the White Paper on Enterprise, which highlights the critical role of skills in our enterprise model.