Gaeltacht Policy
Dail Éireann — 2026-07-14
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Peadar Tóibín (AON), Meath West

A part of that question focuses on the development in the Gaeltacht areas. Obviously, the Gaeltacht is the well of the Irish language. The Gaeltacht is currently at such a level where it is at the edge of continuance. This could be the last generation with the Irish language as a community language within the Gaeltacht. One of the big elements of the Gaeltacht has obviously been the ability to raise families in the Irish language. Housing is a very important element of that and there are significant campaigns currently out there as a result of the lack of proper housing within the Gaeltacht. There are also language schemes but there is a threat potentially of people coming into Gaeltacht areas with only English and therefore changing the community language within that area. Recently, the Government had produced new guidelines on that and there were major concerns those guidelines would have the effect of reducing the Irish spoken in Gaeltacht areas if we sought to house a large number of English speakers in those Gaeltacht areas.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-07-14/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:08+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-14