No paid figure stated in the government’s documents
A Dáil written answer of 8 October 2026 puts the Exchequer's share of CASPIr at €50M of an expected cost of about €70 million, and the AI Factory Antenna's €10M budget is split evenly with the EU; no appropriation account, estimate or parliamentary answer read reports any payment for either.
CASPIr national supercomputer: Exchequer contribution through the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (Vote 45)
A part of the programme. The Exchequer share covers CASPIr's acquisition and operation (CAPEX and OPEX); the AI Factory Antenna, the programme record's other half, is funded separately (the AI Factory antenna line). No Revised Estimate, appropriation account or Budget 2027 document names CASPIr, so the €50M is the Minister's statement in a written answer, an announced envelope with no act behind it, and the answer gives it as an expectation rather than a settled amount.
Announced by the government: the Exchequer’s €50 million share of CASPIr’s expected capital and operating cost. Printed as “€50M”. About $56M at the reference rate of 8 Oct 2026. The total cost of the project, to include both CAPEX and OPEX is expected to be approximately €70 million, €50M of which will be provided by the Exchequer.
Houses of the Oireachtas (Dáil Éireann Official Report), Dáil Éireann, written answer to Question 335 [71171/26], Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science on supercomputing facilities, answer, paragraph 1, third sentence, 8 Oct 2026
Announced: €70 million, 8 Oct 2026. Printed as “approximately €70 million”. Expected total cost of CASPIr, capital and operating, all funders together (Exchequer plus the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking); an expectation, not spending. The total cost of the project, to include both CAPEX and OPEX is expected to be approximately €70 million, €50M of which will be provided by the Exchequer.
Houses of the Oireachtas (Dáil Éireann Official Report), Dáil Éireann, written answer to Question 335 [71171/26], Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science on supercomputing facilities, answer, paragraph 1, third sentence, 8 Oct 2026
Announced: €20 million, 8 Oct 2026. Printed as “€20 million”. EuroHPC Joint Undertaking co-funding awarded to Ireland for CASPIr in 2022, per the Minister; EU money, which belongs to the EuroHPC row, kept here because it is the other operand of the stated €70 million. In 2022, after a competitive selection process at EU level, Ireland was awarded €20 million by the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (JU) for the co-funding of the mid-range supercomputer CASPIr.
Houses of the Oireachtas (Dáil Éireann Official Report), Dáil Éireann, written answer to Question 335 [71171/26], Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science on supercomputing facilities, answer, paragraph 1, first sentence, 8 Oct 2026
Announced: €20 million, 27 Mar 2026. Printed as “€20M”. The same EuroHPC award in the Department's release launching the procurement; it agrees with the October 2026 answer. The release gives no Exchequer amount. Exchequer funding will be pledged by DFHERIS, leveraging €20M awarded by the EuroHPC JU as the result of a competitive process.
Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Minister Lawless welcomes launch of procurement process for new world-class supercomputer, third paragraph, 27 Mar 2026
AIF IRL-Antenna (AI Factory Antenna): co-funding by the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science
A part of the programme. The Department's half of the antenna's €10M budget; the other half is the European Commission's, through EuroHPC. The Department prints its share only by reference: €5 million of European funding, 'a figure that will be evenly matched by my department’s funding', so the €5 million here is that printed figure, which the answer says the Department will match. No estimate names the antenna.
Announced by the government: the Department’s €5 million match to the EU’s funding of the AI Factory Antenna. Printed as “€5 million”. About $6M at the reference rate of 16 Oct 2025. Recently, following an international competitive process, an Irish AI Antenna factory has been awarded €5 million in European funding, a figure that will be evenly matched by my department’s funding.
Houses of the Oireachtas (Dáil Éireann Official Report), Dáil Éireann, written answer to Question 27 [54274/25], Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science on investment in artificial intelligence research, answer, first paragraph, second sentence, 16 Oct 2025
Announced: €10 million, 3 Dec 2025. Printed as “€10M”. The antenna's total cost, shared evenly by the Department and the European Commission. The answer of 8 October 2026 restates it as 'a €10M budget evenly funded by the exchequer and the EU Commission', and the answer of 28 July 2026 (Question 4178) as 'a €10 million budget jointly funded'; the sources agree. The total cost of €10M will be evenly shared by my Department and the European Commission.
Houses of the Oireachtas (Dáil Éireann Official Report), Dáil Éireann, written answer to Question 271 [68264/25], Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science on the AI factory antenna, answer, paragraph 1, 3 Dec 2025
Announced: €10 million, 8 Oct 2026. Printed as “€10M”. Latest restatement of the antenna budget. The same sentence records a separate €10M pledge to Ireland's participation in the AI Gigafactory initiative, which is outside this programme and is not recorded as a figure here. I want to mention here the Irish AI factory Antenna, with a €10M budget evenly funded by the exchequer and the EU Commission, and the Irish participation in the AI Gigafactory initiative, that my Department has pledged €10M to.
Houses of the Oireachtas (Dáil Éireann Official Report), Dáil Éireann, written answer to Question 335 [71171/26], Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science on supercomputing facilities, answer, paragraph 2, 8 Oct 2026
Searched, 8 places
Houses of the Oireachtas open data API (parliamentary questions, with answers): Every Dáil and Seanad oral and written question with its answer dated 1 January 2025 to 2 November 2026 (134,786 questions in weekly pages), filtered for supercomput|CASPIr|ICHEC|EuroHPC|high-performance comput|AI Factory|AI Antenna|MeluXina; 54 matches read.. Answers of 16 Oct 2025 (Q27, antenna €5 million matched), 4 Nov 2025 (Q2131, Exchequer contribution 'currently being examined'), 3 Dec 2025 (Q271, antenna €10M evenly shared), 24 Feb 2026 (Q1140, EuroHPC 'some €20m'), 28 Jul 2026 (Q4178, Q4192) and 8 Oct 2026 (Q335, CASPIr €70 million total, €50M Exchequer). None reports an amount paid or spent on CASPIr or the antenna. Houses of the Oireachtas open data API (parliamentary questions, with answers), 2 Nov 2026
Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General, Appropriation Accounts 2025: Appropriation Account 2025, Vote 45 Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (35 pages; Accounting Officer and Comptroller and Auditor General both signed 18 September 2026): programme C subhead outturns, significant variations, note 2.10 commitments and major capital grant programmes over €20 million.. No CASPIr or AI Factory Antenna line. Subhead C.4 (Programme for research in third level institutions) outturn €46.541 million against €44.142 million; the €2.399 million increase is attributed to an interim service on Luxembourg's supercomputer after the expiry of the previous national high-performance computer's warranty. That service is a stopgap, not CASPIr, and the account does not print its full cost. Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General, Appropriation Accounts 2025, 2 Nov 2026
Revised Estimates for Public Services 2026 (Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation): Revised Estimates for Public Services 2026: the full 323-page volume searched; Vote 45 pages 236-243 and agency statements read.. No mention of CASPIr, supercomputing, ICHEC, EuroHPC or the antenna anywhere in the volume. Vote 45 subhead C.5 'Grants for other research programmes' carries €174.292 million capital for 2026 (€25.750 million in 2025) without itemisation; which subhead will pay CASPIr is not stated. Revised Estimates for Public Services 2026 (Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation), 2 Nov 2026
Budget 2027 Expenditure Report (gov.ie, publication page dated 6 October 2026): Budget 2027 Expenditure Report (6 October 2026): the whole report searched; Vote 45 chapter (Programme C) read.. One sentence promising to 'continue support for the renewal of Ireland's High Performance Computing capacity', including the AI Factory Antenna; no amount. Budget 2027 Expenditure Report (gov.ie, publication page dated 6 October 2026), 2 Nov 2026
Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science press releases (gov.ie): Releases of 13 Oct 2025 (antenna award and hosting agreement), 26 Nov 2025 (INSPIRE €750 million package) and 27 Mar 2026 (CASPIr procurement launch).. Antenna: €5 million of European funding to be matched nationally. CASPIr: EuroHPC €20M; 'Exchequer funding will be pledged', no amount. INSPIRE names high-performance computing among its purposes but gives no HPC amount. Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science press releases (gov.ie), 2 Nov 2026
Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science annual reports (gov.ie): Annual Report 2025 sought by URL and search; only the 2024 and earlier reports are listed.. No 2025 annual report found; the 2024 report predates the CASPIr hosting agreement. Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science annual reports (gov.ie), 2 Nov 2026
EuroHPC Joint Undertaking and ICHEC (University of Galway) pages on CASPIr and the antenna: EuroHPC hosting-agreement release (13 Oct 2025) and CASPIr call page (closing 5 May 2026); ICHEC news of 13 Oct 2025, 31 Mar 2026 and the antenna page.. Tender estimated total value EUR 25,000,000 (acquisition, delivery, installation, maintenance); ownership 65% University of Galway for the Irish Government and 35% EuroHPC; antenna €10m evenly co-funded. Not Irish budget-execution documents; no payment figures. EuroHPC Joint Undertaking and ICHEC (University of Galway) pages on CASPIr and the antenna, 2 Nov 2026
oireachtas.ie website search and KildareStreet mirror: Full-text search of Dáil and Seanad questions to 2 November 2026 for supercomputer, CASPIr, ICHEC and EuroHPC (not run: CAPTCHA).. The oireachtas.ie search answered with a CAPTCHA page (not attempted) and kildarestreet.com did not respond; the API sweep above replaced both. oireachtas.ie website search and KildareStreet mirror, 2 Nov 2026
Still open
The €50M Exchequer share is stated as an expectation; no document read shows a contract awarded under the CASPIr tender (closed 5 May 2026) or the amount the Exchequer has committed under one (unverified).
The answer of 8 October 2026 gives no period for the €50M (capital and operating); the EuroHPC call describes the contract but no Irish government document ties the €50M to dates.
How the €70 million splits between the EUR 25,000,000 tender (acquisition and maintenance) and operating costs is not stated in any document read.
Which Vote 45 subhead pays CASPIr and the antenna is unverified; the 2026 Revised Estimates do not itemise either.
The antenna 'commenced' in 2026 (grant agreement expected April 2026; launch announced July 2026); the Department's payments to the consortium in 2026 will first be visible, if at all, in the 2026 appropriation account.
Open Sovereign AI funding