TD: Avoid State contracts with “anti-Government” CEOs
State agencies shouldn’t sign contracts with companies whose CEOs hold “anti-Government”, “anti-immigration” views due to the “risk” of “tech bros” becoming too “politically-involved”, a Fianna Fáil TD has said.
The comments were made by Deputy Naoise Ó Cearúil, Fianna Fáil spokesperson on Artificial Intelligence and Gaeltacht Affairs, during Tuesday’s meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Artificial Intelligence.
“The Department of foreign affairs mentioned Ask Finn on a number of occasions,” Ó Cearúil said.
“Is it true that Ask Finn was developed by a successful Irish company called Intercom?”
Ms. Síle Maguire, from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Director General of Corporate Services Division, said that this was not true.
“No,” she said.
“Ask Finn was developed by the Department. It was developed by Mr. McGinn and his colleagues, working with Ms Byrne.”
Ó Cearúil thanked her for the clarification, adding: “There is another system, Fin AI, which was developed by Intercom and I had some questions about the appropriateness of using that.”
Later in the discussion, he came back to the same issue, saying that he would not like to see State agencies work with Intercom due to what he called the CEO’s “anti-Government” and “anti-immigration” views.
“One thing I just want to touch on is in relation to risk, and the risk analysis that’s been done,” he said.
“One thing that I haven’t seen to date is kind of the political risk, and what I mean by that is, we’re seeing kind of with ‘tech bros’ in the US, etcetera, that are becoming far more politically-involved.
“FinAI was developed by Intercom, and the Chief Executive [of that company] has come out with very anti-Government and anti-immigration stances, and my fear was that the DFA was contracted to such an organisation and thankfully that’s not the case.”
Asked how State agencies would approach the issue of political views of potential vendors, Ruth Kennedy of the Revenue Commission said that political association was not taken into account during tender process.
“I suppose we would risk-assess vendors, but we would operate within a public procurement perspective,” she said.
“We wouldn’t be able to say someone couldn’t tender because of associations, per se.”
Intercom is a global customer communication software company that was founded in Dublin in 2011 by four Irish co-founders, with offices in San Francisco, London, Sydney, and Chicago. It provides AI-powered tools for customer service, sales, and marketing to businesses worldwide.
As of 2024, it was valued at approximately $1.3 billion.
CEO and co-founder Eoghan McCabe is known for being outspoken on political issues on social media, including immigration, online censorship, and more.
Gript contacted Intercom for comment, though no reply was received.
