Ivana Bacik: Calls out 'AI washing' as tech firms cut jobs

Before I begin I want to congratulate new deputies Daniel Ennis and Sean Kine. As a by-election veteran myself I wish you the very best although I was elected during Covid so I missed out on the handshakes and the hugs and the lovely warmth you got. Taoiseach, recent layoffs in the tech sector are causing huge stress and anxiety for those receiving redundancy notices, for those seeing their colleagues laid off and for the communities affected. You'll know my own constituency Dublin Bay South is home to many tech companies and to the workers who keep them running. Entire communities have been built on the promise of secure well-paid tech jobs but this news reminds us of the vulnerability of that model and of our national economy. Meta is cutting 350 jobs here. That proportion of the workforce vastly exceeds global averages and the IT sector indeed has shed more than 20,000 jobs in the past year alone here. How are the tech oligarchs dressing this up as modernization, flattening teams, awful language when they're talking about people's livelihoods and people's lives. Flattening companies really means throwing staff to the wolves to satisfy shareholders and inflate share prices. Multi-billion euro corporations led by Trumpian cheerleaders in Silicon Valley are using AI as cover for years of over hiring and for ruthless cost-cutting. Taoiseach, this is AI washing and these companies are showing contempt for the industrial relations mechanisms of the state. We're seeing it with Covalent. They snubbed an invitation to the Workplace Relations Commission even as they look to sack 700 people but they can do so with impunity it seems because our labour laws are too weak. These corporations know something else too Taoiseach. They know how vulnerable Ireland is. Our economy is dangerously dependent on a handful of tech giants and they know your government is frightened of them. Afraid they'll pull investment. Afraid they'll move jobs elsewhere. So we are in a permanent game of chicken and the biggest losers are the people now fearing for their futures. As our enterprise spokesperson Deputy George Lawler has said, we have a pool of talent here in Ireland, highly skilled talent who are now being made redundant and so somebody must call the bluff of the tech giants. Taoiseach, what we need and what Labour have been calling for is a serious industrial strategy to ensure that Ireland is more than just a host for multinational profits. We need to start cultivating indigenous Irish enterprise and innovation to develop a domestic startup boom in the AI and tech sectors and we need stronger collective bargaining rights, stronger protections for workers facing redundancy, serious investment in education, in retraining and upskilling. Above all we need a government who will stand up to the tech billionaires. So Taoiseach, what we in the Labour Party are asking is what is your government's strategy now in the face of these job losses to protect tech jobs and to ensure that we diversify our economy and reduce our over-reliance on multinationals. Well could I first of all take the opportunity to welcome Deputy Daniel Ennis and Deputy Sean Kine and congratulate you on your election and I've no doubt that you're looking forward to being effective and productive legislators and of course diligent representatives of the people that have elected you to Dailur. It's a great day for you and your family and we hope that they particularly enjoy this historic day for you and them. In respect of employment more generally and the impact of AI and the decisions of certain tech companies to take decisions I think overall I think we should not lose sight of the fact that our economy is continuing to grow significantly. Even if you GNI as our figure and again modified domestic demand is expected to grow by about 2.1% in 2026. It increased by 4.95% last year and employment has been fairly consistent even year-on-year you're looking at about payroll the payroll employees index is up 2.2% year-on-year but at about 2.8 million close to 2.8 million workers. So we have a very robust and resilient employment story made up of SME sectors as well as the multinationals but you can never look at them as an either-or. They're both inextricably bound together. It was interesting I was in Dexcom recently in Galway where a factory has been built that will accommodate a thousand workers by 2028. At the moment there are 300 workers there but what was interesting in an investment of about 300 million Dexcom I think procured about 180 of that locally to the local supply chain. Figures might vary. So in other words there's lots of smaller companies who are able to plug in to the Dexcom investment. I'm always critical I was at a Japanese pharmaceutical in Killarney or sorry in Kerry recently and again the same story in terms of clean room technology, in terms of laboratories that now we have companies at a calibre that can actually supply into very sophisticated operations. So what we do need yes to develop our SME sector, work with Enterprise Ireland in terms of high potential startups. We do need to do better at scaling up companies but quite a lot of Irish companies have scaled up on the backs of having originally won contracts and with big multinationals. If you take all the companies that have supplied into Intel for example in Kildare and I was at I went into the Intel site about two or three years ago in the midst of the next fab being built. Nearly every construction Irish construction company was in there and different companies doing incredible frontier type solutions for Intel in terms of in terms of clean room technology and so on like that. So we do have a healthy ecosystem but we do need to invest more and we need to on the skills side is key to the AI issue and with the skills roundtable, AI ready data and the National Skills Observatory that James has put in together I think that's a very good solid response to what's happening. Thank you. Well Taoiseach I agree it's not either or and certainly SMEs are the backbone of our economy but what we've seen is an over dependence on a handful of small tech companies and that's the concern and yes of course there are many SMEs that are working with them that are in in the supply chain but the problem is as you say yourself the lack of scaling up of SMEs the lack of investment in indigenous startups and that's a real concern. So we do need to diversify the economy this isn't just Labour saying this you've seen it from some every expert who's looked at our economy and can I say this there's also a particular concern about workers rights in tech companies. Look at the issue for example of PIPSC performance improvement programs, spurious programs being used now by tech companies to justify making redundancies, squeezing the PIPSC until they squeak because this is what we're seeing Taoiseach so they're using legal loopholes to justify making redundancies and I think there is an issue here about workers rights and tech companies and so at a minimum what we've called for for Labour is the introduction of stronger workers rights protections to force big tech to play fair amid these plans to lay off workers and to expose this issue of AI because they're making huge profits while they're saying that they need to cut costs. Taoiseach to respond. There's two dimensions to this I think AI in itself will change the world of work and we shouldn't be blind to that and we need to prepare for that I think the investment in skills in particular and thankfully the IMF have identified Ireland as one of the top countries in terms of AI skilled and population and AI skilled workforce. Equally though I would accept that because of the extraordinary investments in AI by some of the global players that they are cutting costs in terms of human resources and it may not necessarily be all AI driven. There are certain investment decisions being taken which and one of the negative consequences of that is a cutting of the labour forces globally and not just in Ireland and we have to prepare for that. We do have strong labour protection laws in this country and frameworks that govern any redundancies or any situations pertaining to workers rights and I wouldn't understate the protections that are there. On the small business front I'd say to you as well that regulation is a big feedback from the SME sector. Thank you Taoiseach. We move now to Deputy Holly Kearns.