Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 6 February 2025
136. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to provide a detailed breakdown of all funding allocated for the year ahead or spent in the past fiscal year by his Department on artificial intelligence systems or artificial intelligence research; what programmes or Department operations are conducted using artificial intelligence tools; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3711/25]
View answerMy Department has not allocated funding in the past fiscal year, or in the year ahead, towards artificial intelligence systems or artificial intelligence research. My Department does not currently conduct any operations using artificial intelligence tools.
My Department is, however, currently conducting a program of work to assess if a Microsoft AI product, specifically Copilot for Power BI, could enhance the flexibility and capability of the Housing For All reporting service that is available through the Insights data platform. This scope of this work includes testing key publicly available datasets in a secure test environment and will involve a robust assessment of the results to identify any potential opportunities for the use of artificial intelligence tools. There is no decision on the use of AI beyond this initial testing and there is no associated financial cost to the Department.
