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

To illustrate the idea, if there are ten people in a bar in the Gaeltacht and one is an English speaker, there is a tendency for the other nine to default to English to make sure that the English speaker is not left out of the conversation. One of the big threats in Gaeltacht areas is often high numbers of English speakers. Once it gets past a certain threshold, it significantly changes the language in that local area. It should be a prime objective of the Government to create a strong, vibrant, Irish-speaking area That cannot be done anywhere else where the language is not a community language because outside the Gaeltacht, the language really only exists in networks, and networks are far poorer in terms of language depth, knowledge, and so on. Údarás na Gaeltachta should be the housing authority for the Gaeltacht, because it is the only organisation that is really knowledgeable about the task and that has the prime objective of it. I know the Minister is shaking his head, but many local authorities simply do not really have a focus on the Irish and 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