Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)

Thank you, Minister of State, and your officials for your work. Be assured that this committee wants to work very closely with you on how this transformative technology, and indeed the convergence with other technologies, will impact in all aspects of lives. I agree with Deputy Keogh's point. Regardless of whether it is sandwiched into one Government Department, this is really across all Government Departments.

I applaud you, Minister of State, on the ambition you have outlined today but, just to be clear about what we are looking at achieving, and it is critical, we will see by 2026, next year, the establishment of an independent office on artificial intelligence, which we certainly welcome in the same way as the independent Artificial Intelligence Advisory Council. We will be holding a major summit on artificial intelligence next year, whether as part of the EU Presidency or as a stand-alone event. I welcome the commitment to the establishment of an AI observatory. It will be critical for our universities and other research institutes to feed into that, to look at not just the economic impacts but also the social impacts in all of those areas. The establishment of sandboxes on AI to encourage innovation will be critical.

These objectives are all very ambitious. We as a committee support you in that. I have no doubt in your own ability but are you confident in the ability of your civil servants and across other Government Departments to be able to deliver all of that in 2026?