Mr. Barry Lowry:

I thank the Joint Committee on Artificial Intelligence for the opportunity to speak to it today about govtech and AI. My colleague, Ms Marianne Cassidy, has explained the purpose and values of the guidelines for the responsible use of AI in public service and how these guidelines can actively empower public servants to use AI in the delivery of services. The role of the guidelines is to be a further support to existing organisational governance relating to the adoption of technology, robust added governance, value for money and innovative ways of working. They do not, nor could they, set out the technical detail of how a public service body might best use AI in the development or improvement of its services. In other words, they provide the guardrails for those doing the service transformation work, rather than the step-by-step advice and instruction of how to combine the technical components together to complete the work.

In the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer, OGCIO, which, as the committee knows, is a division of the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, we see two specific areas where support might be needed in the proposed use of AI. The first area relates to the findings that have emerged from three large language model, LLM, proofs of concept that we completed in 2024, with the learnings report published in January 2025. To summarise the key learnings quickly, they include the importance of planning a project carefully and being clear about the resources needed and the planned outcomes before jumping into the technology. The report also emphasised the importance of business input, strong governance and implementation support. The findings also highlighted the criticality of well-managed and carefully curated data to drive the right outcomes; emphasised the importance of considering, designing and building a good user experience; outlined the value of resourcing LLM projects with multidisciplinary teams, including business knowledge, data curation, user experience and technical know-how; and emphasised that as successful implementations will not be cheap, serious thought should be given to business justification, implementation, governance and benefits realisation. The report also highlighted that the product landscape was complex and rapidly evolving. It is, therefore, important for a public service body to appoint an AI partner that can help to source and use toolsets that best meet the requirements of the organisation which can be switched out or upgraded easily. These could include cloud hosting solutions.

The type of approach set out above might be described as govtech in that it broadly aligns with the World Bank’s definition which describes govtech as a whole-of-government approach to public sector modernisation that provides simple, efficient and transparent government through the use of digital technologies. In the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, we are also interested in a second, slightly different definition which is based on insights from the OECD govtech policy framework. According to the OECD, govtech offers a mechanism to experiment with and adopt digital technologies in a way that is agile, innovative and cost effective. It helps improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the public sector and fosters the participation of start-ups and newer providers in the government market.

To that end, we are working on an outline plan which involves collaborating with public service bodies to develop a set of challenges that could conceivably be met by innovative solutions that are not currently available in the marketplace. Obviously, these include new technologies such as AI and next-generation mobile phone applications. The idea is that the most appropriate and strongest of these solutions will be selected via a panel and taken forward using the EU partnership procurement method. The benefits of this approach are that they will allow the public service to support several start-ups through solution, business mentoring and funding to deliver products that could be used and scaled in Ireland but also farther afield, effectively creating exportable intellectual property.

The concept is exciting. I emphasise, however, that this will be the first application of the method, namely our first use of the EU innovation partnership model. Obviously, it will be the first adoption of several new technologies and partnerships. It will clearly require careful thought and planning going forward. I am happy to take on board the views of the members of the committee and return at a future date to advise them on progress.