Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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321. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the way in which artificial intelligence is being used or the way he envisions it could be used by his Department and agencies within the aegis of his Department in making climate predictions and preparing for extreme weather events; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [48642/25]

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The AIMSIR Centre (Artificial Intelligence for Meteorological Services, Innovation and Research) is a UCD-Met Éireann research initiative funded by Met Éireann’s Weather and Climate Research Programme. Its primary aim is to harness Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data science to advance Ireland’s capabilities in weather and climate services.

The AIMSIR Centre was launched on Friday 19th September 2025 and aims to develop world-class weather and climate products through core PhD and postdoctoral AI/ML research programmes. The centre is led by Professor Andrew Parnell, who was appointed Full Professor of Data Science for Weather and Climate in November 2024.

AIMSIR will play a significant role in contributing to Met Éireann’s development and implementation of the latest AI technologies to enhance citizen safety, bolster Irish economic and environmental resilience and support weather related decision-making across all sectors.

AIMSIR will be a cohort-based PhD programme with intakes of researchers in September 2025, January 2026 and September 2026 and is aiming to host 18 PhD and Postdoctoral Researchers over an initial 5-year period.

The AIMSIR researchers will look to leverage AI to tackle a diverse set of challenges; from very short-range nowcasting of heavy precipitation, to the development of specific impact models for power outages and trees down during severe wind events, to utilising AI to enhance existing hydrological forecasts for river catchments.

This is a one-of-a-kind collaboration. It strengthens national capacity by bringing together Met Éireann’s scientific expertise in the weather forecasting, climate services and flood forecasting with UCD’s world-leading knowledge in the fields of machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Met Éireann, through Ireland’s membership of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF), also contributes to the Machine Learning Pilot Project. This collaborative project utilises Artificial Intelligence to develop weather forecasting models.