AI and jobs: Ireland's enterprise minister Peter Burke says AI is behind a 'very significant' number of redundancies

Ireland's Enterprise Minister Peter Burke says AI is already behind a "very significant" number of redundancies and "churn" across the Irish economy. Speaking on 13 October 2026, ahead of the Government's AI Summit at the RDS in Dublin, he said "there is a very significant portion of redundancies and churn in relation to AI right across the economy", and named the sectors exposed now: "it's very clear the jobs that are in ICT, consultancy, some in financial services". "We know the jobs that are vulnerable now," he said, according to the Press Association report. Asked whether he would seek commitments from the tech giants based in Ireland to keep staffing levels, Burke did not answer directly, pointing instead to close work with companies and to state training: about 33,000 people trained against a target of 40,000 by 2030. He said a Cabinet subcommittee on AI would look at particularly vulnerable sectors, and that "we need to see it as a position of transition for the Irish economy." At the same event, Higher Education Minister James Lawless rejected "doom and gloom" about AI and said: "It's not so much that AI might take your job, but somebody better skilled in AI might take it." Burke is the minister responsible for jobs in a country that hosts the European headquarters of many large US tech firms, which makes his account of AI-linked redundancies unusual for a serving government minister. He named no employer and gave no figure, so nothing here enters the AI layoffs tracker.