Top 5 Jobs in Government That Are Most at Risk from AI in Ireland - And How to Adapt

AI risk in Irish government jobs matters now because adoption has exploded: IDA Ireland reports AI uptake surging to 91% and projects AI could add €250 billion to the economy by 2035, while the government published May 2025 guidelines to keep public services ethical and human‑centred; practical pilots are already live - the Revenue Commissioners use large language models to route taxpayer queries, the Department of Agriculture is building AI to spot grant errors, and St Vincent's University Hospital is testing AI for heart ultrasound scans - meaning routine administrative tasks face real automation pressure and public servants need rapid reskilling and clear oversight.

Read IDA Ireland's national AI strategy and current adoption analysis from ProfileTree, and consider the Nucamp AI Essentials for Work bootcamp registration to gain practical AI skills for the public sector.

“Free GenAI tools are very accessible but because they lack suitable management and oversight pose significant risks for use in the Irish Public Sector. Any information given to a public GenAI tool could be used in training the model,” the guidelines state.

Selection combined Ireland‑specific evidence on task exposure with practical use‑case scanning: roles were ranked by the degree to which tasks are repetitive, rule‑driven and low in complementarity (where AI can replace rather than augment human judgement), drawing on TASC's sectoral analysis and worker survey and cross‑checking against Nucamp's practical AI use‑case guidance.

Key inputs included TASC's findings that roughly 63% of jobs face AI exposure and that entry‑level and administrative roles show the highest vulnerability, plus survey signals (over 600 workers) that 88% expect displacement while only 28% feel adequately prepared.

To keep the list actionable for public servants, scenarios were validated against real government pilots and common public‑sector use cases such as document routing, form processing and customer‑service automation; recommended adaptations emphasise targeted upskilling, governance and job redesign rather than simplistic tech bans.

For readers who want the evidence trail, see TASC Accounting for Workers in the Age of AI analysis and the Practical AI roadmap for the Irish public sector for the concrete prompts and pilots that informed these choices.

Administrative and clerical officers top the risk list in Ireland because their day‑to‑day work - data entry, form processing, document routing and routine customer correspondence - is exactly the kind of high‑volume, rule‑driven activity AI and intelligent automation erase fastest; TASC report: Accounting for Workers in the Age of AI's sector analysis flags these roles as high exposure with low complementarity, noting women and entry‑level staff are disproportionately concentrated in them and urban hubs like Dublin and Cork face particular pressure.

Beyond headline numbers, the reality is stark: simple tasks that once filled a clerical shift can now be handled by OCR, workflow bots and LLM routing in seconds, creating rapid productivity gains but squeezing headcount unless jobs are redesigned.

That's why surveys show deep anxiety - 88% expect displacement while only 28% feel prepared - and why policymakers must pair pilots with targeted reskilling, stronger governance and role redesign so administrative staff can move from recording to reviewing, exception‑handling and people‑facing work.

For further detail, see the TASC report: Accounting for Workers in the Age of AI and SiliconRepublic's analysis of AI v jobs.

“AI will not replace you, we say. But another human using AI, absolutely will.”

Contact centre and customer service agents in Ireland are on the frontline of automation: routine routing, FAQ handling and appointment management are precisely the tasks AI excels at, slicing average handling time and freeing staff for complex cases but also putting whole shifts of repeat work at risk - see Intervision's analysis of how AI reduces AHT and boosts first‑call resolution.

Public‑sector pilots (for example, LLM routing in Revenue) mirror private‑sector moves: real‑time transcription, live translation and AI triage can speed responses during spikes, and Business Insider documents moments where transcription even caught a whispered “the guy pointed a gun in my head,” showing how tech can save time and spot missed cues.

Yet the gains come with trade‑offs - loss of empathy, bias, cyber‑risk and overreliance in high‑stakes settings are real concerns explored in emergency‑services reviews, so Irish agencies must pair tools with human oversight, clear governance and targeted reskilling as set out in the Practical AI roadmap for the Irish public sector to preserve trust while improving efficiency.

“The rapport, or the trust that we give, or the emotions that we have as humans cannot be replaced,” Elio said.

Data entry and processing clerks are classic high‑risk roles because the work is relentlessly repetitive and rule‑driven - exactly the kind of tasks AI is primed to automate - so in Ireland these roles sit near the top of exposure lists in TASC's analysis; the report estimates roughly 63% of jobs face AI exposure and highlights that entry‑level staff and women are disproportionately concentrated in vulnerable administrative work, while 88% of surveyed workers expect displacement and only 28% feel prepared to use AI tools.

That mix of high exposure and low preparedness matters on the ground: routine keystrokes, form checks and record reconciliation that once filled shifts can be swept into automated pipelines unless organisations invest in reskilling, stronger governance and role redesign.

The EU AI Act's Article 4 already makes AI literacy a legal obligation for organisations using AI, so practical training and role‑tailored learning are essential - see TASC: Accounting for Workers in the Age of AI report for the exposure data and Maples: Ireland Update - AI Literacy in Focus for compliance steps - and Nucamp Practical AI roadmap (AI Essentials for Work syllabus) offers concrete upskilling pathways for public‑sector teams facing this transition.

Financial and accounts clerks and payroll officers in Ireland are squarely in the crosshairs because the tasks that dominate their days - reconciliations, accounts payable/receivable, payroll runs and routine anomaly checks - are precisely what AI, automation and realtime payroll platforms do best; vendors like Zellis argue AI can automate routine processes, cut month‑end crunch times and even provide 24/7 payslip explainers that boost employee financial wellbeing, freeing teams for higher‑value oversight and exception handling.

At the same time the evidence of worker anxiety is stark: TASC and the FSU found roughly 63% of jobs are exposed to AI and 88% of financial workers expect displacement, with 60% feeling less secure and only 28% saying they feel prepared - trends also visible in hiring patterns reported by Morgan McKinley as firms redesign graduate roles.

The “so what?” is simple: without rigorous governance, ring‑fenced models and targeted reskilling, a month of payroll that once filled a weekend could become minutes of automated validation - good for accuracy, risky for unprepared staff - so policy and training must keep pace with technology.

“we should remain cautiously optimistic about using the latest AI techniques to improve payroll productivity – ensuring their deployment is both ethical and responsible.” - Steve Elcock, Zellis

Paralegals and legal support staff in Ireland are at the sharp end of a practical shift: AI tools excel at the routine bulk work - e‑discovery, contract review, invoice validation and natural‑language queries - so tasks that once swallowed whole days can now be automated, speeding up turnarounds and freeing teams for deeper legal analysis and client‑facing work; see Brightflag's review of how legal AI transforms paralegal workflows for examples of invoice validation, centralized matter visibility and secure, purpose‑built assistants.

But there's a hard lesson: courts and commentators have already flagged the dangers of unchecked reliance - AI hallucinations have produced non‑existent citations and flawed submissions that led to judicial rebukes and sanctions in Irish and comparative cases - so Irish public‑sector legal teams must pair tool adoption with strict data governance, validation routines and CPD offered by the Law Society to avoid professional and procedural risk.

The practical takeaway is simple: become the team member who knows which AI to trust, how to verify outputs, and how to translate AI gains into people‑centred legal value so paralegals move from form‑filler to strategic partner.

“This sounds like something that derived from an artificial intelligence source. It has all the hallmarks of ChatGPT, or some similar AI tool.”

A just transition for Ireland's public servants hinges on three practical, cross‑cutting moves: lock in governance and iterative pilots so AI is used under clear rules (the Practical AI roadmap for the Irish public sector prioritises governance, skills and pilots), pair every efficiency gain with ring‑fenced models and validation so automation doesn't simply erase jobs overnight - think of payroll and routine clerical flows - and scale targeted reskilling so affected workers can shift into oversight, exception‑handling and people‑facing roles; celebrate and spread what works via schemes like the Public Sector Digital Transformation Awards to reward safe, effective deployments; and make accessible, job‑focused training the norm - for example, the AI Essentials for Work bootcamp provides workplace AI skills, prompting and practical use cases to help teams adapt.

These steps - governance, piloting with independent review, and fast practical upskilling - turn disruption into an orderly, equitable pathway rather than a sudden shock to communities and services.