{"id":421770,"date":"2026-04-28T14:44:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T14:44:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/421770\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T14:44:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T14:44:19","slug":"ai-job-losses-in-ireland-likely-to-hit-women-and-younger-workers-hardest-says-report-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/421770\/","title":{"rendered":"AI job losses in Ireland likely to hit women and \u2018younger workers\u2019 hardest, says report \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new office to co-ordinate the regulation of artificial intelligence<\/a>, campaigns to help business and wider society adapt and an international AI summit during Ireland\u2019s European presidency<\/a> are among the measures agreed by the Cabinet on Tuesday as part of its response to the rapid rollout of AI technologies internationally.<\/p>\n

After Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> warned last week of job losses and industry upheaval in the coming years due to the arrival of AI, the Cabinet on Tuesday approved a report by the National Economic Social Council<\/a> (Nesc) to guide the \u201csafe and responsible development and use of AI in Ireland\u201d.<\/p>\n

Nesc is an advisory body in the Department of the Taoiseach<\/a>, which is chaired by the country\u2019s top civil servant John Callinan and includes representatives of business, trade unions and other sectoral interests.<\/p>\n

The report to be published later on Tuesday evaluates the threats and opportunities of AI and sets out a path for the State\u2019s response.<\/p>\n

It underlines the threat to jobs that the Taoiseach warned about last week, citing a study by officials that estimates \u201c63 per cent of Irish employment lies in highly AI-exposed occupations\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cExposure is polarised, with a significant share of workers in high-exposure, low-complementarity roles such as administrative and support functions,\u201d who it says are \u201cfacing greater displacement risks\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWomen are disproportionately represented in the higher-risk cohort, reflecting a larger share of female workers in administrative roles,\u201d it says.<\/p>\n

Analysis from the Department of Finance is already finding evidence of an AI effect, suggesting \u201csignificantly weaker employment growth over the past two years in AI-exposed sectors as compared to sectors with lower relative exposure. This trend is more pronounced for younger workers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report also dwells on the challenges for public discourse and for democracy because of the hugely increased potential for misinformation and disinformation on a massive scale.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0AI boom threatens to cause \u2018significant upheaval\u2019 for Irish tech jobsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Referring to the recent controversy over the \u201cnudification\u201d function on X\u2019s Grok<\/a> service \u2013 where the technology would produce nude versions of photographs of people \u2013 it found that \u201cin an 11-day period, Grok generated an estimated three million sexualised and violent images, including approximately 23,000 depicting children, at a rate of around 190 images per minute.<\/p>\n

A significant proportion of the material remained publicly accessible even after posts were removed. The initial response from X was to restrict the feature to paid users and to implement geoblocking in certain jurisdictions; a move widely criticised as insufficient. Following continued pressure from Irish and European regulators as well as the public outcry, X introduced more substantive technical measures worldwide to prevent the AI model\u2019s ability to \u2018undress\u2019 individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n

The European Commission instigated an investigation into X in response.<\/p>\n

In response to the emergence of AI, the report suggests that the Government\u2019s response be guided by five priority areas: Responsible and Strategic Adoption, Trustworthy and Ethical Practice, Anticipatory Governance, AI Literacy and Public Legitimacy.<\/p>\n

It suggests the adoption of 90 \u201cdeliverables\u201d, which range across several Government departments and agencies.<\/p>\n

They include:<\/p>\n

a new AI advisory unit and a national AI fellowship programme for the public sector;a plan to encourage business to adopt AI, with \u201cAI champions\u201d to highlight opportunities;an \u201cObservatory for Business AI Readiness\u201d to measure and monitor enterprise use of AI in Ireland;an \u201cAI in Research\u201d transformation programme and an internationally leading AI research body to be established;the establishment of an AI Office of Ireland, as the central coordinating authority for the EU AI Act, hosting an international AI and digital summit as a flagship event during Ireland\u2019s presidency of the Council of the EU;a new \u201conline one-stop-shop AI Skilling Platform\u201d for employers and individuals, and a nationwide digital and AI skilling campaign;and a \u201cNational Conversation on AI in research to support public engagement, informed debate and public trust\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new office to co-ordinate the regulation of artificial intelligence, campaigns to help business and wider society adapt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,141970,1398,96282,4069,61,60,1843,53920,80],"class_list":["post-421770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-department-of-an-taoiseach","tag-department-of-finance","tag-european-council","tag-grok","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-micheal-martin","tag-national-economic-and-social-council","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}