The Business Post reported yesterday that Ireland's economic recovery has led to a widening of the gender pay gap. It's a mixed bag in this morning's papers as the barrel of political news runs dry, but the presence of the Coronavirus in Italy is emerging as a top story. The Department of Foreign Affairs is reported to be “closely monitoring” developments, while travel restrictions have been introduced in northern Italy.

"Planned changes to the way special needs assistants (SNAs) are allocated to support tens of thousands of schoolchildren could be a “Trojan horse” for cuts" according to campaigners. This is reported in The Irish Times this morning. The system of 'frontloading' SNAs for the next school term, with schools deciding on allocations for children, is at the heart of the controversy. The autism charity AsIAm has called for the the new allocation model to be halted for at least 12 months to ensure the system is implemented in a “fair, transparent and equitable” way. The paper's education correspondent Carl O'Brien has a helpful Q&A on the issue.

Elsewhere it's reported that children at risk of significant harm are “not receiving an effective service” from Tusla on Dublin city’s northside, according to internal audit reports.

Last Wednesday (19th Feb), I found myself among Ireland's leading experts on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and offering a worker's perspective on the future of work in an AI-driven world (note to self: Always open with a Kurt Vonnegut story). It was a welcome opportunity to meet some of the people who understand the tech behind it all, and to take part in the discussion about the ethics of AI.

The European Commission's regulation for AI in Europe were published the same day. One of the organiser's of the Dublin event, Professor Barry O’Sullivan from the Insight Research Centre in Cork, wrote this piece on the regualtion of AI for Silicon Republic. For my own presentation I drew from the excellent work of Craig Whelan, who researched and wrote Fórsa's scoping paper on automation and the digitisation of work last year. You can read my presentation notes here.

Your Zen this morning is a reminder that the Her Story documentary on RTE One at 8.30pm looks at the life and work of the legendary Cork-born trade union activist Mother Jones.

Have a good week.