Mr. Seán Moynihan:

Mr. Mellon's point is really important. Somebody mentioned the European AI Act earlier. Article 10 of that Act refers to representative data sets requirements and being bias-free. Article 14 provides for a human oversight requirement. Article 4 refers to AI literacy applications. Article 50 refers to transparency obligations. The future for us and the European Union is trying to get something of the scale that prevents us from just going wherever we are ultimately taken on this journey. It has been thought out and is provided for within the EU Act. It is about how we embrace that and bring it down to a local level. Within the EU, there are certain things, for example the Spanish employment services, which is how people access social supports within Spain, and examples in Germany, that are now being put forward as best practice for how governments can embrace these things. We will have to talk to colleagues and have a wider conversation outside of Ireland.

I would like to go back to the issue of equitable access. For many years, even with the budgets coming quick and fast now, everyone has been campaigning to change the phone allowance to a communications allowance, whether it is around broadband or access to assistive technologies, but there has been no movement on that. There are simple things we can do locally to ensure equity of access while campaigning at national and European level. The HSE has around €800 million for access to traditional technology such as crutches and assistive devices for older people and people with disabilities. The list of approved assistive technological devices could be altered and they could be distributed to people who may not have the capacity to get access themselves.