The Minister for Enterprise must recognise the threat artificial intelligence presents to employment and reinforce workers rights in the tech sector, according to Social Democrats TD Sin\u00e9ad Gibney, who sits on the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Artificial Intelligence.<\/p>\n
Deputy Gibney said:<\/p>\n
\u201c400 workers at Covalen, a business which provides services to Meta, have been put on notice that their jobs are at risk, that they could lose their employment by the end of this year – this coincides with impending strike action by dozens of their workers in my constituency, Dublin Rathdown, who are seeking a salary review and role recognition.<\/p>\n
\u201cA significant number of the jobs at risk in Covalen are in AI annotation – this represents a worrying, wide-ranging trend in the AI sector of worker displacement without the allocation of alternative roles, increase in quality of work, or stability in income tax receipts for the State.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis development follows cuts to employee benefits and is reflective of a wider issue in the tech sector, wherein terms and conditions and job security is being eroded across Ireland.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the wrong hands, AI can be used to cut employment costs by reducing staffing – while it has the potential to improve efficiency in public and private services, this can\u2019t come at the expense of making skilled workers unemployed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Department of Enterprise has placed a large amount of emphasis on the AI sector as a key area in which Ireland can benefit and grow, particularly through the provision of quality jobs – it\u2019s clear now that without proper oversight, AI can lead to the loss of these jobs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s vital that this challenge is understood and addressed, particularly in regard to poor standards of employee conditions in terms of both pay and benefits which is becoming the new normal in this sector.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have written to Minister Burke to request that he meets with the Communications Workers Union which represents the affected workers in Covalen as a matter of urgency, with the goal of resolving the current disputes and helping the Department address the issue of labour displacement and poor working conditions in the tech sector.<\/p>\n
December 11th, 2025<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Minister for Enterprise must recognise the threat artificial intelligence presents to employment and reinforce workers rights in the tech sector, according to Social Democrats TD Sin\u00e9ad Gibney, who sits on the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Artificial Intelligence. Deputy Gibney said: \u201c400 workers at Covalen, a business which provides services to Meta, have been put […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11661,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[593,724,7,497],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ai","category-enterprise","category-press-release","category-sinead-gibney"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n