The Employment and Recruitment Federation (ERF) has welcomed the Government’s decision in Budget 2027 to put €150 million from the National Training Fund over three years into reskilling and upskilling workers for artificial intelligence.
In its Budget 2027 submission in June, the ERF called for the fund’s surplus, which it put at around €1.8 billion, to be used to set up a National AI Academy giving workers and employers one clear route into AI training. The National Training Fund is paid for by employers through a levy of 1% of employees’ reckonable earnings, collected with employer PRSI.
Siobhan Kinsella, President of the ERF (pictured), said: “This is money employers have paid in on every payslip, and it has sat in a surplus while firms struggled to find people with the skills they need. Putting €150 million of it into AI skills is the right call. What matters now is where it goes. Recruiters see every week which roles are changing fastest, and it isn’t only the technology jobs. It’s administration, customer service and finance, the jobs where AI is already changing what a day’s work looks like.”
Since February 2025, employers using AI systems have been required under the EU AI Act to take steps to ensure their staff have a sufficient level of AI literacy.
“Employers already have a legal duty to make sure their people understand the AI they use, and most small firms have no idea where to start. A National AI Academy would give them one front door. If this money is spread across a dozen schemes nobody has heard of, it will be spent and nothing will change. Employers paid for this fund, and they should help shape how it’s spent.”
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