Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 10 April 2025
284. Deputy James Geoghegan asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if he will specify the specific policy areas where the Department is examining future use of AI; if he will identify what entities the Department is working with, public or private, in relation to this examination; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18415/25]
Amharc ar fhreagraMy Department has recently concluded a program of work with EY and Microsoft 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. The outputs are still in evaluation internally and is not operational at present. If it is further developed and becomes operational at a later stage then it could potentially be used to inform Housing policy.
This scope of this work included testing key publicly available datasets in a secure test environment and involves 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 was no associated financial cost to my Department.
