“On a strictly confidential basis” a senior civil servant sent a confidential draft document to a lobbyist at the billionaire Collison brothers-funded Progress Ireland – whose board includes the civil servant’s former boss at his department.
The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform didn’t want the draft published but assistant secretary general at the Department of Further and Higher Education William Beausang sent it to Progress Ireland’s Sam Enright anyway.
“I am attaching an advanced draft for your own review on a strictly confidential basis,” he wrote to Enright. He added that his department had hoped to publish it at launch time but their colleagues in another government department requested they didn’t.
Enright replied, "I was just having breakfast with Jim Breslin, who also happens to be on our board – he speaks very highly of you!” Breslin is a former secretary general at Beausang’s department and now sits on Progress Ireland’s board since late 2024.
Enright went on to say he’d be “chatting with some of the Anthropic policy folks” and was looking forward to getting “their perspective”.
A Department of Further and Higher Education spokesperson said, “The document was shared with Progress Ireland to highlight the opportunities for developing Ireland's national compute capacity through Pillar 2 of the Programme and did not contain any sensitive information,” while Enright said, “My lobbying records are up to date.”
‘I really enjoyed it too, many people say that about my conversations. ;)’
On 18 November, Progress Ireland lobbyist Sam Enright wrote to Department of Further and Higher Education assistant secretary general William Beausang, according to documents released to The Ditch under freedom of information legislation.
Enright said he had seen him briefly at a conference and wanted to meet to discuss his organisation’s policy work.
"I am going to Edinburgh tomorrow to give a lecture," Enright wrote, "but I will be back next week and am happy to have lunch or coffee on Nov 25, 26, 27, 28, or any day the following week."
Beausang replied three days later and agreed to meet for coffee in early December. He also told Enright about the launch of the INSPIRE programme.
"You might want to keep an eye out for the launch of 'INSPIRE' next Wed. by our minister," Beausang wrote. He said that it was "a major multi-annual programme of investment in research infrastructure across the HE system."
Government’s INSPIRE research commits the state to investing €750 million in research equipment at universities across the country between 2026 and 2031.
Enright got back to him on 3 December confirming the meeting. He said he was “puzzled” by a lack of public detail accompanying the INSPIRE announcement and mentioned Irish machine learning researchers in California who couldn't return home because of a lack of “compute availability.”
Two days later, Beausang sent Enright the confidential draft framework.
We had hoped to publish it at launch time but our colleagues”, he wrote, in the Department of Public Expenditure, “requested that we didn't.”
The document contained the assessment criteria for university bids for funding. It was circulated to higher education institutions through official channels that same month but Enright received it privately through his communications with Beausang.
“I will read this before our meeting (thanks!), which I really look forward to. I'm chatting with some of the Anthropic policy folks on Tuesday so it will also be interesting to get their perspective on compute and research infrastructure availability in the EU,” wrote Enright to Beausang.
Records show the men then met at a cafe on Merrion Row in Dublin on 10 December. Six days later Beausang emailed Enright again.
"I really enjoyed our discussion which was certainly wide-ranging," he wrote. He told Enright he wanted to discuss plans for advanced computing resources, which he said they didn’t talk about when they met. “I would be interested in your insights on this issue,” he said.
Enright replied on 19 December. "I really enjoyed it too, many people say that about my conversations. ;)”. He said he wasn't worried about Ireland "overbuilding" computing infrastructure and shared a link to an article titled "7 Learnings about Compute Strategy for Middle Powers."
He said he found it "odd" that other material Beausang had shared with him on the topic made no mention of large language models and AI training runs, which he said had "completely changed the game regarding how much computing power a country needs to have to remain competitive”.
Enright said, “No,” when asked if he shared the document with third parties and whether Jim Breslin introduced him to Beausang.
A Department of Further Education spokesperson said, “The department engages with a range of stakeholders and organisations from across the public, private and non-governmental sectors as a matter of course and in doing so works to ensure at all times that such engagements are managed appropriately.”
Progress Ireland executive director Seán Keyes recently appeared in front of an Oireachtas committee where he declined to say how much the Stripe brothers, John and Patrick and Collison, had committed to the think tank. The organisation was a high-profile advocate for what have been called “shedsits” – modular dwellings that can now be built in gardens without planning permission.
