Dr. Teresa Lynn:

It is very difficult to say. We are talking about big funds across Europe. We have had discussions with the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media as to what could possibly be done but, at a minimal level, we could have a budget of €10 million over a couple of years or €20 million over five years. We have to consider that this is funding for research in AI, that is, funding for PhDs, postdoctoral work and possibly the faculty who will advise those involved, along with funding for linguists to evaluate the systems. It is not piecemeal funding that would be sought but as much as the Government can put forward. There will not be a mandatory figure that will have to be met. There will have to be consideration of what is possible and what the community and the public actually needs. CALL systems, translation systems and automatic subtitling would be priorities. In the digital plan launched by Deputy Chambers, which is a huge book including 16 chapters, we outlined a lot of work that needs to be done but we could start with those that are a priority and work forward from there, upping the budget over the years, where possible.