If you are Micheál Martin or Simon Harris, you may feel like avoiding the latest bit of research conducted by the Economic and Social Research Institute and the Department of Finance. The report provides arguably the starkest warning to date on the potential for artificial intelligence (AI) to become the proverbial meteor that could wipe out the very basis of the Irish economy, which successive governments have meticulously built over decades. “AI adoption among Irish firms is likely to lead to job losses, concentrated among highly educated workers, reflecting the strong exposure of high-skilled occupations to AI technologies,” notes the report. Facebook owner Meta, long a keystone of the Irish economy, is reported to be planning to cut as much as a fifth of its employees for similar reasons. Retraining and upskilling will obviously be hugely important in the months and years ahead, but that will only do so much.

Source: The Irish Times April 09, 2026 09:30 UTC