Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 21 October 2025

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence and the State: Discussion

2:00 am

Mr. Liam Herrick:

It is probably too early to make an assessment as to whether things are already working well. We heard from previous Government contributors that while there are isolated instances of the Government use of artificial intelligence, it is not widespread yet. That is probably a good thing, given that the guidelines in the early stages of implementation. We see potential benefits. In the justice system, there may be ways to improve access to justice and to speed up processes. There may be potential around administrative tasks, including processing applications and design, but there are also risks in those areas. Deputy Murphy made reference earlier to the fact that there are already examples in the agricultural sphere where it is understood that there is some use of artificial intelligence but it might have risks if it engages people's livelihoods, grants and so on.

On disability, there may be potential in areas around access to services. One of the concerns from a disability perspective is how the AI models are trained. If the base they are being trained on does not include people with disabilities, for example, they may be skewed. That was part of the problem with the Dutch model, as we understand it. Ms Keatinge may want to add some other areas.

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