Naoise Ó Cearúil (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

My apologies for being late. I had to chair another meeting and I was excited about being at this one. If I was using agentic, I would be organising to go to an Arsenal match rather than a Spurs match, but how and ever. In a previous life, I worked in the tech industry for quite a long period. The meetings with chief information officers and chief information security officers were always fairly tense and fraught because we always had to prove the security and safety of a particular piece of software and go through due diligence, which is always a difficult experience with CIOs and CISOs. I appreciate the added difficulty of dealing with it from a Government and State perspective.

The Guidelines for the Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence in the Public Service were published in May or June, if memory serves me. That document was extremely welcome. I thought it was a little bit risk averse and I understand why. Planning a project carefully was mentioned and I completely appreciate that. Has the Department looked at a way to allow a shift and pivot, particularly when new technologies arise, that can prove they can deliver efficiency or particular benefits to Departments and the Government as a whole?

Has there been a review or study as to whether, if ChatGPT were created tomorrow, for example, and the Department were happy with its security protocols, etc., there would be a way to allow technology, AI technology in particular, to be used rather than the lengthy process we have at the moment?