Why skills and AI matter now for the public sector

Across the Irish public sector, the direction of travel is increasingly clear. Leaders are being asked to modernise services, adopt digital and AI-enabled ways of working, and improve outcomes for citizens; all within a system rightly shaped by governance, accountability, and public trust, write Tim Bergin and Louise Parkinson of EY.

Recent national strategies reinforce this direction. Digital Ireland: Connecting our People, Securing our Future sets out a whole-of-government ambition to embed digital and AI across public service delivery.

Connecting Government 2030 focuses on how the public service itself must change, its digital architecture, interoperability, and ways of working, to make that ambition deliverable in practice. Alongside these, Civil Service Renewal 2030 reminds us that transformation depends as much on leadership, capability, and culture as it does on technology.

Taken together, these strategies point to a consistent insight: progress will depend less on technology choices and more on how confident people feel using digital and AI tools in their everyday work.

Organisational reality

Digital Ireland commits Government to digitalising 100 per cent of key public services by 2030 and explicitly recognises skills and talent as critical enablers of delivery. In practice, this means progress at scale will be closely linked to workforce readiness; not just technical capability, but confidence, clarity, and ongoing support.

This aligns closely with what we see across EY research and our work with Irish public bodies. A recurring theme is not resistance to technology, but hesitation. Technology is advancing rapidly, while organisational capability remains uneven.

EY’s Work Reimagined research highlights the gap clearly: around 88 per cent of employees now use AI at work, yet only 28 per cent of organisations are positioned to achieve AI’s full transformative value. The challenge is not access to tools, but adoption in practice.

AI is present but unevenly embedded

AI is already part of everyday working life for many public servants. Tools are used to summarise information, draft content, search across documents, or automate routine tasks. These applications can deliver real value, particularly in reducing manual effort and friction.

Yet the impact often feels incremental. Any time saved is quickly absorbed by existing demand, and workload pressure remains high. This is not a failure of technology, but a signal that AI is still operating at the edges of work rather than being fully embedded within it.

Across government, this has prompted a deliberate emphasis on responsible, human-centred adoption. The focus is increasingly on ensuring AI supports professional judgement, operates transparently, and is used in ways that staff understand and trust. Confidence, not just capability, is becoming the decisive factor.

Skills are about confidence, not just capability

Civil Service Renewal 2030 places leadership capability, learning, and new ways of working at the heart of reform. That lens is particularly relevant for digital and AI adoption.

Where organisations struggle, the issue is rarely the absence of tools or training offers. More often, it is a confidence gap. People hesitate because they are unsure whether they are ‘using it correctly’, whether output must be perfect, or whether experimenting carries risk. Small uncertainties accumulate, enthusiasm dips, and progress slows.

Where momentum builds, the pattern looks different. Organisations focus on normalising learning in the flow of work, rather than launching standalone initiatives. People begin with simple, familiar tasks that show clear value.

Output does not need to be perfect to be useful. Small wins are shared, confidence grows, and AI becomes part of everyday work rather than something that sits alongside it.

Across public and semi-state organisations, progress tends to come from a small number of reinforcing shifts.

• Linking skills to service delivery: Capability building is strongest where it is connected directly to real delivery needs, whether improving citizen experience, increasing operational efficiency, or strengthening planning and decision-making.
• Working within public-service structures: Defined roles, grading frameworks, and representative arrangements remain essential. Organisations that understand their skills landscape, however, are better able to deploy capability flexibly without undermining governance or fairness.
• Leadership signalling: Civil Service Renewal 2030 highlights the role of leaders in shaping culture. Where leaders visibly use digital and AI tools themselves, share what they are learning, and signal that experimentation is supported, confidence spreads more quickly across teams.
• Shared platforms and common approaches: Connecting Government 2030 emphasises interoperability and reuse. From a workforce perspective, this matters; learning once and applying skills across multiple systems reduces friction and cognitive load.

“Turning ambition into reality will depend less on choosing the ‘right’ technology, and more on creating the conditions where people feel ready to use it; one task and one team at a time.”

Building capability in practice

Where upskilling is gaining traction, it typically happens across three levels. At leadership level, the focus is on digital literacy, AI awareness, governance, and leading through uncertainty; not becoming technical experts, but asking better questions and making informed decisions.

At organisation-wide level, baseline digital and AI capability is built through accessible learning, aligned to national supports under Digital Ireland and public-service-specific guidance.

At team level, skills are developed in context; through workflow automation, digitally enabled service design, recruitment, and finance processes. These are often the moments where confidence grows fastest, because relevance is immediate and value is visible.

Small, visible wins matter. Confidence builds when people see tools working in their own roles and when colleagues share what they have learned.

From strategy to sustained progress

Taken together, Digital Ireland, Connecting Government 2030, and Civil Service Renewal 2030 make clear that digital and AI adoption across the public sector is no longer a question of ‘if’, but of ‘how well’. All three emphasise sequencing, governance, leadership, and workforce readiness over speed for its own sake.

The path forward is unlikely to be dramatic. It will be built through steady progress: small improvements, shared learning, and consistent leadership signals.

Skills, in this context, are not an abstract future aspiration. They are about confidence, inclusion and everyday capability. When people feel confident trying new tools, adoption accelerates naturally. When they do not, even the best strategies struggle to land.

Turning ambition into reality will depend less on choosing the ‘right’ technology, and more on creating the conditions where people feel ready to use it; one task and one team at a time.

Tim Bergin, Partner
E: Tim.Bergin@ie.ey.com

Louise Parkinson, Director
E: Louise.Parkinson@ie.ey.com
W: www.ey.com/en.ie