Mr. Eoin O'Reilly:

There is no doubt that there is general agreement among many of the reports that our professions will be affected. There is a lot of opportunity, if one wants to put a positive spin on it. In any situation where large amounts of information are being processed, there are opportunities. All I can say with certainty as our organisation embraces it, including in its working with law firms, is that it is a very positive embrace. Many of the tasks where productivity could be improved are not top of the list of favourite tasks that people perform. Our people are telling us it is a good thing because it frees them up to spend more time with clients and doing interesting work. That is actually a really good career path.

The Deputy mentioned professionals such as teachers, doctors, nurses. We cannot forget about the empathetic skills which are so important in those roles. AI will have a really big role to play in roles such as teaching assistants, for example. I see it with my own kids doing quizzes with Alexa and how they can learn things from that interaction. We need to think about the possibilities in a hospital environment or a GP's surgery, with the ability to capture information to help with diagnostics and recommendations. It still has to have a human at the centre, however. I do not see a situation where we go to a clinic and see a virtual doctor. That is not what we want. I see the AI as an assistant, with the other human skills being incredibly important as we embrace this journey further.