Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 31 January 2023
159. Deputy Louise O'Reilly asked the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the capital, current and total budget 2023 allocation for the National AI Strategy, AI - Here for Good; the capital, current and total budget 2022 allocation for the National AI Strategy, AI – Here for Good; the percentage difference compared to the budget 2023 allocation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4480/23]
View answerIreland's National AI Strategy, “AI - Here for Good”, provides a high-level direction to the design, development, deployment and governance of AI in Ireland. It presents an integrated framework to manage the expected beneficial socio-economic opportunities that AI presents.
Our vision is for Ireland to become a leading country in using AI to the benefit of our citizens, through a people centred and ethical approach to AI adoption and use. The Strategy helps define how Ireland can ensure a responsible and inclusive approach to developing, applying and adopting AI, and how to harness the potential benefits of AI for both businesses and society.
While my Department leads on the implementation of the Strategy overall and is responsible in particular for driving the adoption of enterprise by businesses, this is a whole of Government Strategy and therefore is not solely focussed on enterprise aspects.
Under both Budget 2022 and Budget 2023, the National AI Strategy was not directly allocated funding for its implementation. The Strategy is a whole of Government Strategy and therefore the funding of initiatives contained under the eight Strands fall under the relevant individual Departments and Agencies.
For example, through the €85 million Digital Transition Fund, we will increase digitalisation of businesses across products, processes, supply chains and business models. This will bring about productivity gains, access to new markets, increased innovation and improved competitiveness - including through technology such as AI.
In addition, the Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund is a €500 million challenge-based fund established under Project Ireland 2040. In Calls 1 to 3 for the Fund, there was an AI element in 31 of the 72 projects, with €103m awarded.
Furthermore, CeADAR, the EI/IDA Technology Centre for Applied Data Analytics and Machine Intelligence, will become Ireland's National AI Hub as part of the European Digital Innovation Hub network with a funding allocation of €1.9 million per annum. CeADAR will focus on meeting industry needs in the areas of data analytics and AI. It will demystify these concepts and appeal to a non-technical audience along with explaining how AI can be applied in practice. CeADAR is already experienced in assisting companies across a wide range of industry sectors in adding value through use of AI and has an existing established programme of formal training in AI.
