Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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Apologies have been received from Deputy Shanahan and Senator Garvey. Today's discussion is on Ireland's national strategic roadmap for the EU digital decade policy programme. The latter is a comprehensive EU-wide framework to guide EU-level and member state policies on digital services in line with the European values of fairness, equality, freedom and protection. In September 2023, the European Commission published its report on the state of the digital decade and member states' progress on the digital transformation targets set out in the policy programme. In response, Ireland submitted its first national roadmap on the EU digital decade highlighting the progress made so far and acknowledging the challenges that lie ahead in meeting the targets set out in the policy programme. Of particular interest to this committee are the challenges in respect of the digitalisation of businesses such as take-up of artificial intelligence, AI, use of big data and cloud computing.

The committee is pleased to have the opportunity to consider these matters further today with the following representatives of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Ms Jean Carberry, assistant secretary in the digital, EU and climate programme division; Ms Ciara Bartley, principal officer, digital economy policy and data access unit; and Ms Nóirín Ní Earcáin, assistant principal, digital economy policy and data access unit.

Before we start, I will explain some limitations to parliamentary privilege and the practices of the Houses as regards references witnesses may make to another person in their evidence. The evidence of witnesses physically present or who give evidence within the parliamentary precincts is protected pursuant to both the Constitution and statute by absolute privilege. Witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against a person or entity either by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. If their statements are potentially defamatory in respect of an identifiable person or entity, witnesses will be directed by me to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

Copies of Ms Carberry's statement has been circulated to members. I invite her to make her opening remarks on behalf of the Department.

Ms Jean Carberry:

I thank the Cathaoirleach and members of the joint committee for the invitation to join them today to discuss the EU digital decade policy programme and Ireland's national strategic roadmap. I head the digital, EU and climate division of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. I am joined by Ms Ciara Bartley and Ms Nóirín Ní Earcáin from the same division. Our division is responsible, among many other things, for the co-ordination of Ireland's response to the digital decade, in addition to the digitalisation of enterprise aspects. The division also has a significant role in the implementation of EU digital regulation. This includes two landmark EU Acts dealing with digital platforms, the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, which entered into force this year. We are now preparing the ground for implementation of the Data Act and the AI Act.

The timing of today's discussion was supposed to be particularly fortuitous. We were expecting that the European Commission would today publish its second annual report on the state of the digital decade. However, it has been delayed until next week. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile for the committee to have the up-to-date numbers. The report, in essence, is a scorecard and analysis of the EU and its member states' progress on reaching the collective digital decade goals.

It follows publication of the first annual report on 29 September and the submission of the national strategic roadmaps, which are the subject of today’s discussion.

Allow me to provide some background to the digital decade before discussing the national strategic roadmap, the digital economy and society index, DESI, and the Department's role in these. The state of the digital decade report, which will be published next week under the framework of the digital decade policy programme, is based on a decision that established co-operation structures between the European Commission - DG CONNECT is the relevant Directorate General - and member states to support the achievement of 12 shared objectives by 2030 relating to the four cardinal points of the digital compass, those being, skills, government, infrastructure and business, as set out in the 2021 digital compass communication.

The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment has a co-ordinating and reporting function on behalf of Ireland and leads on the digitalisation of enterprise quadrant, which will be the main focus of today’s discussion. The Departments of the Environment, Climate and Communications, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, and Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform lead on the other three points of the digital compass, those being, skills, government and infrastructure.

A governance structure has been established by DG CONNECT to support the achievement of the digital decade objectives. The digital decade board is serviced by my Department and sub-committees are serviced by various Departments, as relevant. Biannual meetings of the digital decade board take place at senior level, bringing together the EU 27 and the Commission, and there are frequent sub-committee meetings to examine some of the technical areas and the work on European digital innovation consortiums. These consortiums are a legal mechanism created under the digital decade to allow member states to collaborate on large digital projects, including pooling national and EU funding.

Ireland’s national strategic roadmap was submitted to the European Commission in November 2023, following publication of the first "Report on the state of the Digital Decade" that September. The purpose of the roadmap is to provide national projected trajectories towards each of the digital decade targets and the broader objectives. It describes all the planned, adopted or implemented instruments - policies, measures and actions - that contribute to their achievement. The purpose is to foster consistency and co-ordination across national and EU levels and to drive forward collective achievement of the goals.

The roadmap covers the 12 digital decade targets to be reached by 2030. These are: on skills, 20 million ICT specialists and 80% of the population having basic digital skills; on digitalisation of enterprise, a 75% uptake of cloud, AI or big data, doubling the number of unicorns and at least 90% of SMEs reaching basic digital intensity; on infrastructure, universal gigabit connectivity, doubling the EU share in global production of semiconductors to 20%, 10,000 green and secure edge nodes, and the first computer with quantum acceleration; and on digital government, 100% of key public services online, 100% of citizens having access to health records online, and 100% of citizens having access to digital IDs. The scope of the roadmap reflects the breadth of objectives in the digital decade decision. In addition to the 12 targets, wider digital policies in support of these are included, for example, addressing the digital divide, fostering the start-up ecosystem, an effective digital regulatory environment, and improving cybersecurity and energy and resource efficiency.

Preparation of Ireland’s roadmap required extensive collaboration and co-operation by officials across several Departments. Member states are required to submit an updated roadmap every two years. It is, therefore, an interactive process and one for which stakeholder engagement, including with Oireachtas Members, is essential.

The 2024 report on the state of the digital decade, which will be the second annual report and include the digital economy and society index, was due for publication by the European Commission today. My Department has some foresight of what will be published, but it is subject to change. The package includes the 2024 DESI, the 2024 state of the digital decade report, a country report for each member state, EU-wide and country-specific recommendations, and an analysis of the national strategic roadmaps.

A draft copy of Ireland’s report was shared by the Commission. I have not yet been able to review the final report, but it is clear that Ireland is taking positive steps across many of the areas covered. We have ambitious national strategies in place across the spectrum of digital policy areas and our national digital strategy, entitled "Harnessing Digital - the Digital Ireland Framework", is closely aligned to the digital decade framework. This was done deliberately. We have strategies, programmes and initiatives in place across the broad spectrum of digital policy areas, including our national AI strategy, entitled "AI - Here for Good", which I might point to as an early national AI strategy among EU member states, the national broadband plan, Quantum 2030 on quantum computing, and the recently published "Digital for Care - A Digital Health Framework for Ireland 2024-2030".

The DESI is another element of the digital decade report. Since the programme took effect in 2022, we no longer get a composite DESI overall ranking of member states. The last time we got a composite ranking, though, Ireland ranked fifth. Since 2023, rankings are presented across each of the indicators, which loosely correspond to the 12 targets aligned to the four cardinal points of the digital compass. In the 2023 DESI, Ireland performed well and the 2023 country report documented our capacity to contribute positively to the EU 2030 targets. The indicative 2024 results will show that Ireland continues to perform strongly overall. We are among the leaders on digital skills, ranking third for basic digital skills, above basic digital skills and ICT graduates, and fourth for basic digital content creation skills. On digital connectivity, we are among the top ten on a range of metrics relating to broadband, fibre, mobile broadband and gigabit connectivity. On digitalisation of business, we are first on e-commerce turnover, fifth on SMEs selling online and fifth on the number of unicorns, which is extremely good in the context of a very small member state. On digital government, we rank second on digital public services for business, fifth for mobile friendliness and sixth for e-government users.

However, the 2024 results show there are also a number of areas where we perform less well relative to our peers. On connectivity, we are 18th on overall 5G coverage and 5G spectrum. On digitalisation of business, we could do better on electronic information sharing, where we are 22nd, the use of e-invoices, where we are 15th, the use of social media, where we are 13th, and the use of AI, where we are 12th. On digital public services, our weak areas are access to e-health records - unfortunately, we rank 27th in that regard, but we are working on it - and pre-filled forms, where we rank 19th. It should be noted that there is a time lag in the reporting for some indicators. For others, the indicators change from year to year, making it difficult to do a precise comparison of year-on-year results. However, all indicators used are uniform across the EU 27.

My Department leads on the digitalisation of enterprise, where we are conscious of efforts to close the gap in the two-speed digital economy. A number of measures were recently announced by the Government as part of the SME package that broaden and increase the digitalisation supports available to SMEs and microenterprises in particular, where digitalisation can be particularly challenging. These include doubling the innovation grant scheme from €5,000 to €10,000. This scheme is offered by Enterprise Ireland and also available to LEO clients and can be used to develop a new product, process or service, to train in innovation management, or to conduct an innovation or technology audit. Another measure involves widening the eligibility for the trading online voucher, extending it to all sectors up to 50 employees, modernising eligible expenditure and doubling the grant to €5,000. This will be renamed the "grow digital voucher" and its use can cover a number of the areas measured in DESI, subject to approval by the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform. Other measures include widening the eligibility for the digital for business consultancy scheme and extending it to all sectors with up to 50 employees, and launching the new online national enterprise hub for SMEs to access information on the wide range of Government business supports, including a phone helpline run by EI, with dedicated staff to help businesses identify relevant supports. In addition, the grow digital portal, which will be nested within the enterprise hub to avoid duplication or confusion for businesses, will mainly be targeted at microenterprises and potential LEO clients and will allow companies to assess their digital maturity and present the benefits of digitalisation.

Officials in my Department and across other relevant Departments will digest the state of the digital decade report, the Ireland country report and the DESI results when they are published next week. We will seek to address any gaps identified in future policies and initiatives. The next update of the roadmap will be submitted in 2025.

I am happy to answer any questions the committee may have.

Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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Thank you, Ms Carberry. I now invite members to discuss the issues with the representatives. We have a rota in place. The first person who has indicated is Deputy Louise O'Reilly.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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I thank our guests. I will jump straight in. We often talk about the four Ds, namely, demographics, decarbonisation, digitisation and deglobalisation. They are key trends that are likely to transform the economy over the next decade. Based on the figures, as it stands, only 66% of SMEs have a basic level of digital intensity, according to the DESI, as Ms Carberry referenced. That has decreased from 84%, a drop of almost 20%. I am curious to know what has caused that. Does the Department have a handle on why that might be happening or what the result will be?

Ms Jean Carberry:

Yes, we do. Clearly, when we saw that drop we were astonished so we began digging into it straightaway. The first thing to say is that the goalposts changed. I am an accountant and, to me, it is rather astonishing that you can change the rules and not restate the prior ones, but that is what the Commission, in its wisdom, decided to do. The EU average has also dropped in the same period because of the change to the goalposts. We were at 84% last year and the EU was at 69.1%. We are now at 66.1% and the EU is at 57.7%. Our lead, however, has dropped on a relative basis. That is the important point.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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Yes. It is the figure of nearly 20% that threw me. It is-----

Ms Jean Carberry:

The 20% is the change to the goalposts, but also we want to be out ahead and we would prefer to be increasing our distance from the average rather than decreasing it. I will give the Deputy a little breakdown. The score is based on counting how many of 12 selected technologies are used by enterprises. The basic level requires usage of at least four technologies. They measure different ones based on different survey years. In 2024, five of the things they measured were the same as in 2023 and seven were different. Going back to the 2022 survey, 11 of the 12 were the same as in 2024. In that case, we have moved from 64% to 66%, so we have increased but only marginally, by 2%, when looking at like for like, or almost like for like. That explains the big drop.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Ms Carberry for that because it was one of those figures that jumped out. I see her colleagues nodding. It is good to hear that explanation.

Ms Jean Carberry:

We reached for the smelling salts.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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I can imagine.

My next question relates to AI, the cloud and big data. We know that the national AI strategy refers to all those things as being here for good, and fingers crossed for that. We know that big data, AI, analytics, the cloud and so on are essential technologies which will be key drivers for productivity and innovation and will enable us, exactly as Ms Carberry said, to be on the front foot. However, we are either static or drifting as regards digitisation of businesses in this regard. What is being done to increase the adoption of these technologies, especially among the SME community? It is possibly easier for the bigger companies. The smaller ones are, in my humble and possibly ill-informed opinion, the ones that could potentially benefit the most but the ones that have the least time to be able to harness this. In terms of the Department's work, what is being done to drive this among the SME community?

Ms Jean Carberry:

There are two types of AI. There is what is called narrow AI, which is the big data crunching that is used by pharma companies for pharma discovery and used by other big companies. Then there is the revolution we had a couple of years ago when ChatGPT and other large language models were introduced. They are potentially revolutionary for all businesses, and we think that over the next three or four years this will change the world of business in the same way the introduction of the Internet or PCs and email changed the world of business.

Our approach in Ireland, however, has been to focus first on the safety aspect. We think that when the guardrails are in place, we will create a better landscape for businesses to use these tools, which I think over the next three or four years almost all businesses will adopt. The EU AI Act will enter into force probably around 1 August of this year. My Department is already working on getting all the competent authorities in place and getting that enforced. At the same time, the National Standards Authority of Ireland has been working with its European colleagues on developing standards and certification processes for AI. Our view in the Department is that the first thing is to make it safe to use AI and to provide confidence to businesses that they can adopt these tools. That has been the focus over the past two or three years - putting the guardrails and building blocks in place. Dr. Patricia Scanlon, our AI ambassador, has done a very good job of bringing a balanced tone to the conversation about AI and cutting through all the sci-fi and doom-mongering. That has been a key part of our approach to bringing an evidence-based focus on AI.

The next step now - and we are leveraging the various tools at our disposal - is to get our enterprise agencies to work with businesses to acclimatise them to the potential that AI presents for them and to the risk that if they do not adopt AI, their competitors will, and will eat their lunch. At the same time, through our Enterprise digital advisory forum, we are working very closely with the IBEC part that focuses on tech and AI to develop a campaign which will provide examples and advice to businesses on how they can use AI. The important thing, however, is that they use it in a safe way. The certification, standards and regulatory underpinning had to be put in place first because there are a lot of risks. I can go through that; I do not want to eat up all the Deputy's time.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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That is fine. I am just curious to know if there will be a specific focus on SMEs.

Ms Jean Carberry:

Yes.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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It is not that we think that bigger companies will just manage on their own; they will not. However, they have a lot more resources, so that partnership with IBEC will be the one that will drive the focus for SMEs.

Ms Jean Carberry:

There is IBEC, and then we are trying to crowd in ISME as well because we know that businesses listen to their peers. It is a matter of putting up exemplars and, through the digital portal as well, we will be putting up exemplars of businesses that have used AI. Basically, it should be as a productivity tool or a way to reach one's clients in a more innovative way. We want to put the exemplars out there.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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The organisations like that are interested. I know ISME, Family Business Network Ireland, the Irish Exporters Association, all those groups-----

Ms Jean Carberry:

Yes, and Scale Ireland.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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Exactly. They are all interested. I think they are interested, concerned and curious. They do not want their competitors getting ahead of them but, equally, they want to keep doing what they are doing and do not want to be branching out to do something new that might be beneficial but also could be costly.

Ms Jean Carberry:

There are still some glitches in this. We have talked a lot to people, including in Microsoft and Google. They still cannot do anything about the hallucinations. They try to avoid talking about it, but there will be new models coming down the track that will be better. We do not want to push businesses too hard, too fast. We want to do this in a responsible way-----

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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And to be led by the businesses. That is grand. That is good to know.

Ms Jean Carberry:

I also hope to embark on some kind of roadshow in the autumn to demystify the AI Act. Many businesses know that regulation is coming down the tracks but it mostly will not impact SMEs at all. It is important to get that message out.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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That is welcome. I know we are talking about digital but there is no substitute for being physically present.

Ms Jean Carberry:

That is an important message too. Regarding the fear about jobs, etc., one cannot replace human beings or human creativity and judgment. All of those things need to be part of this.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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In the context of looking at AI, the committee is focused on the need for human involvement, particularly when hiring and firing people, deciding who gets what shift and that sort of thing. Algorithms might be very handy but they do not take account of human beings. Some human involvement has to be built in. SMEs and customers want to know that is happening.

On the threats posed and cybersecurity, particularly as public services become digitised - when you look at e-health records, you wonder how much danger there is from a cyberattack when everything is paper based. Sin scéal eile, as they say. There is the National Cyber Security Centre. What is being done specifically to protect businesses? What approach will the Department take to ensure businesses have the necessary cybersecurity software and skills to protect their businesses from cyberattacks? The same will apply in the public sector. Will the Department take the road of upskilling staff through the likes of Skillnet? Will it be an all-in package? In other words, with AI comes security. How will that work?

Ms Jean Carberry:

We work closely with Enterprise Ireland. I cannot with 100% certainty say when it will be available but we are working on developing a support, in the first instance for Enterprise Ireland clients, that will provide grant funding for cybersecurity protection. That is one thing that is in the pipeline. The cloud is a safe place for data. Having as much data as possible in the cloud is one cybersecurity protection. Cloud first is the message from the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer perspective and which enterprise agencies and LEOs are pushing to their companies. I cannot comment on the specifics relating to the Department of communications. The Department owns the National Cyber Security Centre, which has certainly been the subject of increased investment. Ms Bartley may also wish to comment.

Ms Ciara Bartley:

It is outside the remit of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment but the Department of communications is developing a national cybersecurity strategy for industry. I understand that work is quite advanced. We expect good initiatives and key actions from it. In addition to the scheme Ms Carberry mentioned, the new revised trading online vouchers, the grow digital voucher, will cover companies of up to 50 people and there is a wider range of application, as Ms Carberry said earlier. It will cover cybersecurity software where a company has not used it before. All companies of up to 50 people will be eligible for that. It is about providing access to that software for companies in addition to the grow digital voucher, a consultancy is also available with which companies will engage to find out more about their needs. Part of the issue sometimes is that cybersecurity is quite intimidating, especially for SMEs and micro-companies. It is for them to know what they need to and taking that first step in a guided way, which will be helpful.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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Unfortunately, the headline "The cybersecurity worked and nobody was harmed", will never get much publicity. The only time we talk about it is when there has been a major security breach. I know the cybersecurity centre is not a competency of the Department. How much input has there been from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment into a strategy for industry?

Ms Ciara Bartley:

There is an interdepartmental steering group on which we participate with colleagues from Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland. There was a public consultation, which I believe concluded recently. We are in the final stage. It will be a publicly available national strategy, as far as I am aware.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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My time is up. I thank the witnesses. I must apologise because I need to go to another meeting. I will not be able to stay but I will look back.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I welcome the witnesses. I thank them for coming in and for all the work they do in this space. It is important. Ms Carberry stated that we are in Europe fourth for basic digital content, fifth in the context of SMEs selling online and fifth in the number of unicorns. Who is ahead of us?

Ms Jean Carberry:

Do we have that information?

Ms Ciara Bartley:

It might be in the wider report, which we do not have sight of yet.

Ms Jean Carberry:

We only got where Ireland is. It does not show where other countries are.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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It might be useful to know what they are doing that we are not and how we can emulate them.

Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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That will be in the report next week.

Ms Jean Carberry:

We are part of the D9 group of advanced digital member states. Ireland chaired it in the first six months of this year. We are to hand that responsibility over to Denmark next week, I think. We meet once every six months. There are now 13 countries in the D9 but we retained the name. It is called the D9+. We meet every six months and exchange information on best practice. We get ideas from them and give them ideas about how best to maintain our digital leadership position. The Commission also attends those meetings. It is a chance for us to influence Commission thinking on digital regulation and things like the digital decade. On unicorns, I used to own the access to finance responsibility. Funding unicorns was one thing I was responsible for. Ireland is strong in that area. Sweden, France and Germany are probably ahead of us. Fifth is extremely good considering how small we are. It is a testament to what a good system we have in investing in startups and nurturing them.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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With all that is coming down the tracks and the huge demands that will placed on us all with respect to AI, in particular, and the use of data centres, perhaps the witnesses heard Seamus Dunne from Digital Realty on Newstalk this morning. He was concerned about the moratorium on data centres here. He said that without capacity, we are stymied. We will not be able to achieve what the witnesses set out. Has the Department carried out analysis with respect to the capacity of the cloud and data centres, and the constraints that might have on the other fantastic plans and ambitions in this area?

Ms Jean Carberry:

We are acutely aware of the data centre issue. Ms Bartley and I are working closely with the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications and the Department of the Taoiseach on a work plan to address this issue. It is not just data centres; it is all large energy users. It is a key constraint. We will take a paper to the Cabinet committee on economy next Monday, setting out our plans to address the issue. We are looking at it from a medium-term and a long-term perspective. The most important thing is necessary investment in the grid beginning now so that data centres and other large energy users can plan for investment that can begin operating in 2030 and beyond. These are long-term and large-scale investments. If we begin planning now for 2030, that is the certainty businesses need. Everybody has a role in ensuring that the investment in the grid and infrastructure which we need is prioritised by the Government.

What we are hearing, certainly from the IDA, is that this is a huge constraint on attracting the next wave of investment that we want to be at the centre of, in the context of AI, technology and also in general. We are certainly working hard to ensure that infrastructure and grid investment can take place, but we need everybody's support.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I am glad to hear that. Already, the word is out there among many of the investors and FDI companies that there is a problem here that needs to be addressed.

Ms Jean Carberry:

The important thing is certainty for businesses. While we are in this position now, the important thing is that we can say we know where we are and where we want to go, and we have a plan. That is what businesses want to hear. What they do not want to hear is that we do not know where we are going. That is the important thing.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I am glad to hear that because certainty is hugely important for the future. There is no doubt about that and I want to support the Department and encourage it in the work it is doing in this space. It is hugely important. We can have all the plans and other things, but without the physical infrastructure in place we are stuck.

Ms Jean Carberry:

That requires money and it requires the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform to make money available to the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications so that it can make these investments. We are working as hard as we can to make it a top priority.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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Energy is linked to this issue and the committee has had a number of debates on it. The Chair is aware of concerns that members had about the amount of energy the data centres use. Given the significant growth projected for AI, we are going to see more of that. As we speak, some solar farms are being curtailed because we cannot take the units they are producing.

Ms Jean Carberry:

I cannot speak to the grid because I do not have that expertise. I can say, however, that the large data centres are at the forefront of developing innovative and sustainable solutions. The Bord na Móna-Amazon joint venture is an exemplar of what can be done. These companies are working on all sorts of experimental ways to have sustainable energy. If we can work in partnership and harness this, that will be an important way to go.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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We need to get the word out that there is a plan and that we are open for business in this area because that is not the message that I am getting.

Ms Jean Carberry:

I can certainly say that this is occupying large amounts of our time. We were working on that paper at 7.30 a.m, so it is a top priority.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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One of the areas the Department mentions, and it is one of our weak areas, is access to e-health records. We are currently ranked 27th on this. Why are we still using paper records? It does not make sense. It is far more efficient to have records digitised. The Department is saying we are ranked 27th, which is extraordinary.

Ms Jean Carberry:

I cannot speak for the Department of Health, but I do know it has a plan. It is aware that this is a problem. It has a plan and is working on this. I cannot speak to that, however. Some of this is also because different countries may be a little looser in how they report. There certainly are some electronic records but it is about the strict definition of what they are, and the Department of Health decided they did not fit that strict definition.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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People going into hospital are still filling out paper forms. It is ridiculous in this day and age. There is no connectivity between the various sectors. It is ridiculous. It is not only a cost in terms of manpower and so on, it is also dangerous. Paper forms get lost, so digitisation is far safer. That is an area that needs work. The new national enterprise hub for SMEs tracks information on a wide range of Government business supports. Will the witnesses tell us a little more about that? It sounds fascinating.

Ms Jean Carberry:

I will pass that question over to Ms Bartley or Ms Ní Earcáin.

Ms Nóirín Ní Earcáin:

The national enterprise hub is an effort to bring together all the different supports available to businesses that are offered by various State agencies, for example, Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland, Bord Bia and Tourism Ireland, all on one website. It is a comprehensive effort. It is led by Enterprise Ireland, working with the Department of enterprise. It is not in our division; it is in a different division of the Department. It will be launched officially on 10 July, but the website is live and the link is available to the committee.

The idea is that this website will be a signpost. It has short, clear information and will point enterprises onwards to the right places to find the supports that are suitable to them. In addition, there is a staff of six to seven people who are available on the phone and a webchat to help. As we have said before, sometimes having a human is helpful in the age of chatbots, especially for smaller and micro-enterprises, to point them in the right direction and to the appropriate person for the assistance they need.

As Ms Carberry also mentioned, there are other supports available, including the Grow Digital portal, which is in the final stages, and the climate for digital toolkit. I am not sure if that is the right name but the toolkit helps businesses to address decarbonisation. Those websites will be linked to the national enterprise hub. It is a one-stop-shop where all the relevant supports can be found.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I would like to go into a little more detail on what Deputy Stanton discussed, specifically the conflict between our ambitions in digital and our ambitions on climate. At EU level, a distinction is drawn between the emissions trading system and where national targets must be met. However, our climate Act has merged those two elements so we do not draw a distinction. The data centres are in the emissions trading system. The principle of that system is that certain EU infrastructure should be located in the country where it is most efficient and that will not be added to its national burden. Is the key constraint here that we have set the wrong target and constrained our ability to evolve the long-term need of having data centres, which are good for digital and offshore energy resources that we intend to develop? In the short-term, we risk constraining those, simply because we set the wrong target. Is the root cause that we do not have the flexibility now that we ought to have to plan for the long term?

Ms Jean Carberry:

That is part of it but it is not the only problem. There are many issues that feed into the current problem, and one is that, through a confluence of things, including what has happened in Ukraine etc., we have a shortage of energy and the grid is constrained at this point in time. There is also a need to update the grid. Significant investment in the grid is needed so that electricity can go to places where the sustainable energy is coming. I have heard an analogy that it is like a road system. Pieces of the grid are like tertiary roads, but those tertiary roads happen to be going to where a lot of offshore wind will be coming. They need to be upgraded to highways.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I am on the climate committee at which the conversation frequently revolves around how we would meet our targets if only farmers would do X and the data centres would be constrained. That is the narrative, and it is as simple as that. We have hitched our wagon to these two sectors, but we have not evolved a long-term vision for them that is compatible with our climate ambitions. The conversation at political level is not sufficiently informed about where the constraints are.

It is very much a blame game conversation where it is in our national interest, in my view, that we the develop that cloud infrastructure that supports AI, but there are a lot of people who come to the debate full of good intentions who do not really see that. The Department must have a bigger role in explaining the constraints and how we might evolve. I do not hear many people talking about it. I think the sector itself has now set up some sort of a group but the policy debate in here is not sufficiently informed.

Ms Jean Carberry:

I think the Deputy has hit the nail on the head. It is very complex and difficult to explain. There are two relevant points. One is that many other EU member states have heavy industry; Ireland does not. Unlike Germany, we do not have big, heavy manufacturers. Instead, we decided to specialise in software and ICT and data centres are our version of heavy industry. The second point is, which is relevant to what the Deputy has said, when you look at the big emitters in the business sector, by far the largest is the cement sector. Nobody talks about that. If you are actually talking about climate emissions, if we took cement out, that would solve it, certainly on the business side. We are not talking about taking cement out. There are things to do lower the emissions resulting from cement production, but data centres have become the bogeymen and the Deputy is right that we need to put a lot more evidence and information out there so we can have an informed debate.

The data centres are leading on becoming sustainable and reducing their emissions, and they are very motivated to do that. It is the same on the farmer side, and while I cannot speak to that either, we can all move together to achieve our targets. The Deputy spoke about the legislation and how we set the wrong targets. There is something in that but I do not have the expertise to properly answer his question, but this is very complex. I have happened to take on a role recently in climate programmes which is looking at the large emitters, and the €300 million fund that was just announced on Sunday is part of that. We have analysed the 26 biggest emitters and they are food, drink, cement and alumina. They are the sectors we need to look at and give support to to reduce their emissions. Again, that is not part of the conversation now.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The bigger question is do we need to be scared of AI? How is Ms Carberry's Department involved in the risk assessment the platforms are supposed to do of risks to things like human rights, democracy, mental health or whatever? Where are we on, as Ms Carberry said, making sure it is safe? What is the official role of the Department? It seems to me the EU model puts the responsibility on the platforms to assess the risk to whatever and the regulator oversees their work. As the champion of enterprise, what role does the Department play in ensuring these companies who have these big platforms are competent and capable of doing the risk assessment? The corollary of that is that we heard from Accenture or one of those people who were before the committee that every one of their staff has now been inducted into a deep understanding of generative AI. They obviously see this as essential to their role as consultants in this sphere. In the public service role as regulators but also wanting to ensure enterprise success, are we equipping our people to be in that space and to know the difference between safe and unsafe?

Ms Jean Carberry:

We are equipping the regulators for that. My role is to enforce the EU Artificial Intelligence Act. There is no point in being scared of AI. AI is coming and it is a train we cannot stop. We need to focus our energies on making it safe, putting the regulations and safeguards in place, raising awareness, equipping and resourcing our regulators so that they can enforce the regulation, and putting the standards and certification in place. To provide-----

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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It seems to me the technology is moving at 100 mph and all that work Ms Carberry is describing is moving at 20 mph, or am I wrong?

Ms Jean Carberry:

Give me a thousand people and I can move a bit faster. We are working with the EU on the regulation. The Deputy knows it takes a period of time. We want considered regulation. The risk-based approach the EU has taken is a good one. It has looked at what are high-risk uses of AI and that is where the attention is being focused to protect citizens. It is a very measured Act and is a good one. It will be revisited as the technology changes. What we are looking to do is to locate in a body, which I cannot say the name of yet because it has not all been agreed, and make that body a nexus of expertise where we will allow it or give it the resources to hire a number of highly skilled people. The Artificial Intelligence Act is a market supervisory model so different regulators will be responsible in different spheres. If it is AI used by the airline industry, it will be the airline regulator. If it is general products, it will be the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, but they will all be allowed to come into this bank of expertise which we will put in one body.

The EU has an AI office which has been staffed up very quickly and is a resource of expertise for us. I will be on the EU AI board together with my colleague Eamonn Cahill, so we will be sharing experiences with other EU states. We are dancing as fast as we can and what we have is good. The technology is moving fast but we are moving as fast as we can too, and focusing on the youth is a good way to do this because we are not actually getting into the black boxes, so to speak. The Digital Services Act looks at the systems in place in the platform companies and gives us a tool to regulate them if we feel their systems are not up to scratch. Our digital services co-ordinator is doing a very good job on building his team in Coimisiún na Meán and is active in that space too.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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In terms of the risk assessment to protect citizens, what are the domains of that? A lot of us are concerned about the impact on mental health and on younger people. A lot of us, certainly in politics, feel deliberative democracy is under threat from these instantaneous conclusions that people can reach in this very mobile world. What are the actual dimensions where risk assessment needs to be done at a practical level by these platforms? When it comes to equipping our regulator to interface with them, it seems to me quite a complex range of skills are needed to decide whether mental health is being endangered by social media access at a certain age. Those sort of things are quite complex and tricky, so how is the risk ask set for the platforms and the regulator to oversee?

Ms Jean Carberry:

We may be conflating two different things. The social media piece is under the Digital Services Act. It is not AI per se, and the Digital Services Act is about what is legal or illegal, and it has to be that way to give certainty because it would be very difficult to have the grey areas of what is good and what is bad. That is the way the Digital Services Act 2024 was constructed.

On the AI side, the high-risk areas are areas in which fundamental rights are set out. To boil it down very simply, as Ms Patricia Scanlon sometimes does, it is a common-sense thing of one's right to life or well-being. A lot of public services are in a high-risk sphere. In the context of justice and your right to liberty, gardaí are in a high-risk space using AI because they can impede on people's right to liberty. In the private sphere, recruitment is in this space because of your right to a job and your right to access employment. Bias is inherent to AI because there is bias from the programme or from the data set. A good way to illustrate this is by looking back at history and crunching the numbers around what makes a good doctor. AI would probably tell you, looking back over those 100 years, that being male is one of those things because 99% of doctors in the history of time have been men. The algorithm would conclude this is one of the criteria. This is a simple example of how bias can happen and why some human intervention is needed. Recruitment is one example in the private sphere in which a human right could be breached. Medical devices are another example as they impact your health and are therefore high risk if they use AI. Health insurance and life insurance are other areas. To make sense of it, it concerns things that actually impact.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Does life fit into those neat bundles? Things that might upset a person's mental health might not be in the health sector. While this may be too profound, I wonder if this can be managed by saying health and anything which concerns medical records and so on is high risk. The risk under the well-being head could come from quite a range. It seems to me this risk assessment approach is the same approach that got us so wrong in financial services. We had a principal-based risk assessment and everyone was doing the same thing but it turned out to be wrong. Someone needs to be continually kicking the tyres on this thing.

Ms Jean Carberry:

I must confess that I do not have granular knowledge of what is in the AI Act, but my team does. We could certainly arrange another session. I am sure Ms Scanlon would be happy to come in. She could answer the Deputy's questions better than I can. Remember, this is a regulation which is focused on youth. There is free will as well. If you want to use social media, which may impact on your mental health, people can choose. We cannot interfere with people's right to choose a product either. The AI Act looks in at the product level. We may be conflating two or three different things here. The social media piece is separate from the AI piece in a way. We could benefit and I am more than happy to facilitate a session with people who are more expert than me on this.

I wish to finally mention that we set up an AI advisory council which has experts on it. We invited people to apply and we received approximately 500 applications in the end. We have some really high-calibre people on this advisory council and they are available to us as a sounding board. Indeed, perhaps we could arrange a session in which members could talk to real experts in this area.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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It probably goes well beyond the remit of this committee and I do not wish to hold it up. Someone suggested to us there should be a committee of the Oireachtas looking solely at digital technology and its impact because it is such a complex area. I will leave it for the time being. I thank the witness.

Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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That concludes our consideration of this matter today. I thank the representatives for assisting the committee for consideration of this important matter. This concludes the committee's business in public session today. I propose the committee go into private session to consider other business. Is that agreed? Agreed.