Ireland’s national AI strategy refresh: the seven strands

A November 2024 report by Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, the ‘Global AI Vibrancy Tool 2024,’ ranked Ireland sixth globally in terms of AI vibrancy per capita. This puts Ireland ahead of technological powerhouses such as the UK, Israel and Sweden.

Ireland’s success is driven by policies such as the national AI strategy, which was refreshed on 6 November 2024 and issued by the Department of Enterprise, Trade & Employment (DETE). This strategy builds on the original from 2021, titled "AI – Here for Good” and serves as a roadmap for Ireland to harness AI for the greater good, promote ethical AI development and ensure that Ireland remains at the forefront of AI innovation.

The new strategy outlines a fresh governmental approach to establishing the essential enablers for AI adoption in enterprise and public services. This includes fostering a supportive innovation and research ecosystem, ensuring a secure data and connectivity infrastructure, and implementing policies to ensure that young adults and the Irish workforce are prepared for the impact of AI. The national AI strategy is divided into seven strands.

Strand one - AI and society

The DETE highlights the importance of public trust to enable a wide adoption of AI. To that end, the Irish government has committed to raising awareness among the public and businesses of guardrails in place to ensure use of trustworthy AI, including the EU AI Act as well as standards and certification.

The Irish government appointed Dr. Patricia Scanlon as AI ambassador and chair of the AI Advisory Council, established in January 2024. The body is comprised of independent experts and advises the Irish government on AI policy and participates in public engagements to build confidence in the use of trustworthy AI. The Irish government aims to make AI literacy an integral part of Ireland’s literacy, numeracy and digital literacy strategy 2024-2033 which aims to promote the development of essential literacy, numeracy and digital literacy skills for every citizen from birth to young adulthood.  

Strand two - governance for trustworthy AI

Since the original strategy was published in 2021, much has changed in the regulatory landscape for trustworthy AI. In August 2024, the EU AI Act entered into force. The implementation of the EU AI Act will be overseen by the EU AI Board with several working groups. The refreshed national AI strategy highlights that Ireland has an opportunity to be a leader in the AI space through effective implementation of the EU AI Act and active participation on the EU AI Board and its working groups. It also highlighted that the National Standards Authority of Ireland is involved in developing EU-wide standards for AI with which developers and deployers will be required to comply, providing additional assurances to businesses implementing AI tools.

Strand three - driving AI in Irish enterprise

Leading global companies in AI development, such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Microsoft and Google, have chosen Ireland as a strategic hub, attracted by its skilled workforce and supportive business environment. To assist Irish and multinational companies with their adoption of AI and other digital technology, DETE established an Enterprise Digital Advisory Forum to drive industry-wide adoption of AI.

The strategy sets out key strategic actions to leverage AI across all sectors, commissioning research to analyse AI's impact on key sectors of the Irish economy, increasing focus on digital and AI tool adoption through Enterprise Ireland, launching a national campaign to raise AI awareness among SMEs, and enhancing support and training for AI adoption. Actions also include leveraging multinational enterprises expertise to support local enterprises, expanding CeADAR (Ireland’s Centre for AI) to drive AI adoption, incentivising private investment in AI startups, establishing an AI regulatory sandbox, and using public procurement to support innovative Irish SMEs.

Strand four - AI serving the public

This strand builds on the principles expressed above – that AI education and implementation is important to Ireland’s future success – but focuses on the impact AI could have on various public services.

In January 2024, the Irish government approved guidance on the use of AI in the public service and committed that all AI applications used by the public service would comply with seven requirements for ethical AI. In February 2024, the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform (DPENDR) published interim guidelines for the use of AI in the Irish public service, which set out the seven key requirements that AI systems should meet in order to be deemed trustworthy.

All public service bodies will also investigate uses for implementing AI and the government will ensure all bodies have a safe space where civil and public servants are encouraged to experiment with AI tools. An excellent example of this already in practice is the tool RevAssist, a generative AI powered tool used by employees of the Office of the Revenue Commissioners (the Revenue). The tool has been trained on over 1,500 tax duty manuals and employees of the Revenue are able to ask it questions using natural language to receive answers about complex tax issues.

Strand five - a strong AI research and innovation ecosystem

To stay at the forefront of this rapidly expanding area, Ireland needs to ensure that various AI research facilities are more coherent in their research goals. To create a unified identity in Irish AI research, a national AI research nexus is being created which will use collaboration agreements and strategic partnerships between the Research Ireland Research Centres and Enterprise Ireland technology centres that specialise in AI. Reviews will also be conducted on what impact the Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund, a fund established in 2018 to promote Irish businesses deploying new technologies, has had in the AI space.

Strand six - AI education, skills and talent

Ireland has one of the highest rates of digital literacy in the EU, which presents an excellent opportunity for widespread AI adoption. To achieve this, there will be a push to integrate AI into Irish education across various levels, from programs introducing the concept to school children and courses in third level education centres across the country specialising in AI, to a range of upskilling and reskilling programs for the Irish workforce.

Strand 7 - infrastructure for AI

Whilst embracing AI can provide benefits to the Irish economy and workforce, one cannot ignore the technical realities of AI implementation. This technology cannot be truly leveraged without correct infrastructure, such as computing capacity, storage, networks and access to large amounts of energy in place. To achieve this, a review of Irish researcher’s access to high-performing computing services will be conducted with a view to increasing Ireland’s access to advanced AI computing power.

Investments will also be made to maximise the value of grid and energy infrastructure investments, with a specific focus on maximising investments into renewable energy to ensure that Ireland tackles this problem in a sustainable way.

Co-written by Aiden Daly of Pinsent Masons.