Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

-----and examine it to see what has happened.

In response to Deputy O'Callaghan, there is a very real issue with regard to the entitlements of retired postal workers. I will be talking to the Minister for public expenditure in relation to that and to wider issues in terms of agreements of this type that happened in the past and people feeling that their pension entitlements have not stayed at par or have reduced in real terms. I met quite a number of people in the last while who were in quite a distressed state as a result of this reality. I anticipate that these issues will be examined in a considered way because they do not just apply in one area but could have consequences in and read across to other areas.

Deputy Byrne raised the extremely important issue of artificial intelligence. This is as profound as the industrial revolution of the late 19th century in terms of the level of impact and the profundity of change in social lives, business and the economy. Ireland has a strategy but we have to proactively work on delivering it. That means talking about issues like how we get the energy to drive on the huge computational demands that arise from AI and how we get sustainable energy to enable us to do that. We cannot stand still. We cannot have moratoriums for five years and hope everything will be grand in five years' time. That just will not work for the country. We have a technology lead as a country at the moment and we need to maintain that. AI is going to have to be a part of that and that is the reality.

The issue raised by Deputy O'Sullivan is in the programme for Government because of his insistence and persistence, to be fair to him. It is an issue about which he has long had concerns. I will work to make sure we get a timely review of the drug reimbursement scheme. I appreciate the work the Deputy has been doing on rare diseases, orphan drugs and so forth. He has been ploughing a somewhat lonely furrow, although I know the last Minister engaged with him and I engaged with him on it. It has been a long haul but we have got to keep at it for the benefit of the people who receive such medicines.

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