It is unfortunate we are here discussing AI at this particular time because it forces us into a space that nobody wants to be in. At the outset, I want to talk about the benefits. If everything in the plan presented by the Minister of State is to be implemented to its fullest in a timely manner, then we will be making progress. As a party, and personally as the spokesperson on enterprise, tourism and employment, we will work with the Minister of State to progress that. It is true it can bring many benefits to businesses and individuals, from reducing costs to improving productivity. One thing I say with regard to the many millions of euro announced is that we make it easy for small and medium sized businesses to access that money in an easy way because small businesses will not have the resources to do that. The last thing we want is for AI to end up costing the businesses which are already on their knees and struggling to survive. We need to be really conscious of that. I was glad to hear the Minister of State say that simplification does not mean deregulation because that is enormously important. The Minister of State knows that the drivers - some of the richest people in the world - will be driving for that simplification to turn into deregulation and we must be acutely aware of that and stand up robustly to not be sucked into that. That speaks to the whole EU agenda following the Draghi report. The difference between simplification and deregulation is hugely important. That needs to be monitored on an ongoing basis. The Minister of State also referred to public services. They obviously can be delivered in an efficient way with AI but at the same time, it can give rise to much social exclusion. I am talking about people who are not AI literate or indeed technological. People who are elderly and disabled are not used to that and just want to talk to a human being on the other end of the phone. Because of AI, they get one message after another. It is impossible for them to access public services, so I again ask him to be acutely aware of that and put measures in place to ensure everybody can access public services in the same way. Everybody deserves the same treatment. Last week I was at the Stripe Young Scientist Exhibition and saw the wonderful and innovative projects created by students from my own county of Mayo, from Claremorris and Crossmolina. It was fantastic to see what they have achieved, and I commend everybody involved in that and the winner. To me, everybody who was there was a winner. AI is the present and the future and it can be a force for great good. However, without robust regulation it can be destructive and dangerous. What we experienced this week, particularly on social media platform X, exposes the darker reality. AI is only as ethical as the rules that govern it and right now those rules are failing us. Over recent weeks we have seen the disgusting and appalling behaviour from users on Elon Musk's X who deliberately promoted the platform AI tool, Grok, to generate child sexual abuse material and non-consensual nude deepfake images, predominantly of women. Let us be absolutely clear. This is not experimentation. It is not curiosity and it is not victimless. It is sexual abuse facilitated at scale by technology and enabled by corporate and government negligence. It is vile and misogynistic. It is criminal sexual exploitation, regardless of whether the image is synthetic or not. What makes it even more alarming is that it was not even hidden in the dark web. That will tell you the arrogance and impertinence of some of the people promoting that. It happened in plain sight on a mainstream platform owned by one of the wealthiest individuals on the planet, who has many followers in this country I am sad to say. X chose to deploy a tool without adequate safeguards and effective moderation and without regard for the predictable ways it would be abused by its users. X last week confirmed Grok’s image generation function had been disabled. I welcome that, but it says this has been done in jurisdictions where actions are deemed illegal. It should be disabled immediately across the globe.

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