The Republic of Ireland is looking to amend the law to allow the return of asylum seekers to the United Kingdom, according to broadcaster RTE, after an influx over the border with Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK. Dublin's Minister of Justice Helen McEntee, who will visit London on Monday, told a parliamentary committee this week that she estimates 80 percent of those applying for asylum in the republic came over the land border with Northern Ireland. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told Sky News it was evidence that London's plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is acting as a deterrent. "What it shows, I think, is that the deterrent is … already having an impact because people are worried about coming here," he said. In response, a spokesperson for Ireland's Prime Minister Simon Harris said the leader "does not comment on the migration policies of any other country but he is very clear about the importance of protecting the integrity of the migration system in Ireland", RTE reported.

Irish officials may be questioned over the country's plans for facial recognition technology for surveillance during a session with the United Nations Human Rights Committee in Geneva this week. The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has submitted a Shadow Report on what they determine as gaps between the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the reality in Ireland, plus recommendations to rectify them. The group also blames Irish authorities for failing to uphold GDPR, thus allowing surveillance to remain business as usual for digital companies worldwide. The ICCL report, an alternative to the report submitted by the Irish state, is endorsed by 37 organizations and has identified gaps across areas such as the right to a fair trial and freedom from torture, as well as three breaches involving police surveillance and six across data protection. The UN Human Rights Committee meets every four years and countries are invited in turn to defend their human rights provision.

The Irish Government released its AI Strategy "AI - Here for Good" in July 2021, outlining a set of initiatives to meet to be an international leader in using AI to benefit our economy and society. It is a positive step towards further materialising the significant benefits from AI and associated technologies. Ireland is well positioned to be a leader in AI thanks to its innovative culture, adaptable capability, and tech savvy workforce. Adopting AI across the enterprise is a critical component of realising our national ambition. It is within organisations and businesses where the theoretical capability of AI is combined with industry knowledge to create powerful solutions, which can result in a meaningful impact to our economy, our society and our lives.

The Government of Ireland released its national AI strategy on Thursday 8th July 2021, presenting it online, with key members of the government and the public sector in attendance. Comprising a 73-page document, the strategy considers AI from three different perspectives: building public trust in AI, leveraging AI for economic and societal benefit, and enablers for AI. These key aspects are detailed in the strategy document, with eight actionable corresponding strands ranging from how to engage and raise awareness of the public about AI, to building a strong AI innovation ecosystem, to nurturing and developing AI skills and talents. Following the European approaches of ethical, human-centred, and trustworthy AI, "The National AI Strategy will serve as a roadmap to an ethical, trustworthy and human-centric design, development, deployment and governance of AI to ensure Ireland can unleash the potential that AI can provide," writes Robert Troy, Minister of State for Trade Promotion, Digital and Company Regulation. "Underpinning our Strategy are three core principles to best embrace the opportunities of AI – adopting a human-centric approach to the application of AI; staying open and adaptable to innovations; and ensuring good governance to build trust and confidence for innovation to flourish, because ultimately if AI is to be truly inclusive and have a positive impact on all of us, we need to be clear on its role in our society and ensure that trust is the ultimate marker of success."

The Taoiseach said he is conscious that the concept of AI "hasn't had the best reputation" in popular culture, but said it could play a crucial role in economic recovery. Enterprise Ireland's Carol Gibbons joined Taoiseach @MichealMartinTD and Minister @RobertTroyTD for the launch of Ireland's first National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy. Find out more about the opportunities for Irish enterprise in AI technologies: https://t.co/YIDyuH6A2u He said AI had the capacity to double economic growth by 2035. "Inevitably, that popular culture suspicion has sometimes leaked into important discussions about the role it will actually play in our economy and in our society in the years and decades ahead," he said.

Researchers, start-ups and multinationals have been named among the winners of this year's AI Awards. Now in its second year, the AI Awards are run by AI Ireland, a non-profit business with backing from Microsoft Ireland and Alldus International. The organisation runs a number of community websites and monthly meetups supporting the area of data science, machine learning and AI in Ireland. Seven awards were handed out as part of the event today (20 November), with those shortlisted coming from academia, start-ups, SMEs and multinationals. The first of these awards was for the use of AI in a sector, with the winner named as speech recognition start-up SoapBox Labs.

We present a database of parliamentary debates that contains the complete record of parliamentary speeches from D\'ail \'Eireann, the lower house and principal chamber of the Irish parliament, from 1919 to 2013. In addition, the database contains background information on all TDs (Teachta D\'ala, members of parliament), such as their party affiliations, constituencies and office positions. The current version of the database includes close to 4.5 million speeches from 1,178 TDs. The speeches were downloaded from the official parliament website and further processed and parsed with a Python script. Background information on TDs was collected from the member database of the parliament website. Data on cabinet positions (ministers and junior ministers) was collected from the official website of the government. A record linkage algorithm and human coders were used to match TDs and ministers.

Trade unions have vowed to oppose any move by employers to use technological advances in robotics, automation and artificial intelligence as tools to exploit workers. Unions also pledged to fight any Government plan to restrict the right to strike in some essential services, as proposed recently by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar. The biennial conference of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions in Belfast also passed a motion calling for the Government to introduce legislation to give union officials the right to enter workplaces to represent, organise and recruit workers. In an address to the conference, Ictu general secretary Patricia King also urged the Government to scrap the existing reduced VAT rate for the hotel and food services sector, which she described as "completely untenable". She said three-quarters of all workers in the accommodation and food services sector earned less than €400 per week.