Government spending on AI research projects to increase by more than 50%

Just under €1.2m was spent on AI across 17 Government departments in 2024.

The Government is set to increase its spending across Government departments on artificial intelligence (AI) research projects by more than 50%, to more than €1.8m, in 2025.

Responses to a series of parliamentary questions by People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett show just under €1.2m was spent on AI across 17 Government departments in 2024.

Overall spend on the technology is set to jump to at least €1.82m in 2025, with the majority of that increase attributable to a new €500,000 budget apportioned to the Department of Education.

However, half of that funding will go towards implementing enhancements — such as automated invoice-processing — to the Department of Education's new payroll system for the education sector.

The other €250,000 is to be spent on limited trials of AI systems, such as document understanding, the department said.

The Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media boasted the highest budget in 2024, at €764,000, and will have the highest spend in 2025 once more, at €762,000.

The majority of that spending was split between two projects. The first, known as Abair, aims to develop “state-of-the-art language technologies for Irish, with a focus on voice recognition applications". 

The second, eStór, is a data-collection project with the goal of improving the support of the Irish language on the European Commission’s eTranslation platform.

Both will receive significant funding in 2025 also, to the tune of €676,000, the department said.

The other big-spending department in terms of AI is the Department of Public Expenditure, which had an outlay of €350,000 in 2024. Some €120,000 of that was spent by the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer — the State’s digital services administrator — on “exploring the potential of chatbot technology”.

The department will have a bigger budget again in 2025, with €500,000 allocated “to progress AI-related developments”.

Eight of the departments questioned — including Housing, Defence, and Transport — had no budget for AI or research into same allocated either in 2024 or for 2025.

The Department of Enterprise noted the Companies Registration Office uses machine learning to scan digital annual returns to ensure they have been signed correctly.

The Department of Transport, meanwhile, said it was set to commence an AI “proof of concept” project for the Coast Guard, but said no budget has been allocated to that end to date.