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:

Broadly speaking, that covers a lot of the key points from our perspective.

I made reference in the opening statement to the specific concerns around disability. We have a disability advisory committee that is composed of people with lived experience of disability and they have made a pertinent point, which is an interesting observation, that a lot of discourse around artificial intelligence emphasises productivity and efficiency. They have a long history of seeing how discourses around productivity and efficiency have been used against people with disability where their value was being assessed in terms of their role within the labour force, for example. It is a pertinent example of how we need to make sure that we are building in the consideration of rights and equality impacts from the very beginning in our policymaking.