The National Youth Assembly of Ireland is the overarching structure of youth assemblies that meet to discuss government policy documents from a youth perspective and to feed their discussions and recommendations to the relevant government departments. The assemblies play an important role in ensuring that policies enacted by government take account of the views of younger citizens.

Last October, 41 delegates aged between 12 and 24 met to discuss the government’s National Artificial Intelligence Strategy for Ireland:  ‘AI – Here for Good’. This strategy was published in 2021 and the Assembly focused its discussions on four strands that this policy covers: AI and Society, Governance and Trust, how AI will serve the public and the skills and talent that will be required in the era of AI.

Insight members Professor Susan leavy and Prof Barry O’Sullivan were instrumental in helping young Assembly delegates prepare for their discussions. The Assembly has since made a series of recommendations to government and awaits a response.

In the interim, the Assembly retains an association with Insight. Representatives of the Assembly recently attended the AI and Society event at the National Concert Hall in Dublin and put their questions to the guest speaker of the day, AI pioneer Professor Stuart Russell of Berkeley University. The event was attended by many leading AI researchers.

Professor Susan Leavy of Insight at UCD, who organised the event in partnership with UCD Discovery said: “It was vital that representatives of the National Youth Assembly on AI were present at this event. Young people are most affected in relation to AI in social media, education and the future of work so it was very important to Insight that their voices were heard.”

Pictured L to R: National Youth Assembly representatives Matas Babrauskas, Breda Condron, Emily Mehigan, Anna McWey, Fraser Woodward