Artificial Intelligence

Thursday, 6 February 2025

Ceisteanna (72)

Richard Boyd Barrett

Ceist:

72. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform 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. [3713/25]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Freagraí scríofa

Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform

In 2024, my Department spent €166,095 (inc. VAT) on the Future Tech project which involved research in the field of AI for translation.

Additionally, €48,954 (inc. VAT) was spent on research in developing the refreshed AI Guidelines for Public Services.

OGCIO spent €120,000 (inc. VAT) on AI related research and development in 2024, largely exploring the potential of chatbot technology.

As part of our work to support the Better Public Services and related Life Events programmes, the OGCIO is building out the building blocks that make up Government as a Platform.

One of those building blocks is AI-oriented and ahead of any significant investment of development time and effort in area of AI, we undertook some research and development in 2024 of GenAI technology that could be made available to the public service. That was focussed on exploring the potential of a chatbot AI agent (aka HubChat) to people to access government information already in the public domain.

OGCIO has a budget of €500,000 to progress AI related developments in 2025.

I hope this satisfies the Deputy.